Rendezvous
by BIFF1
Summary: A collection of one-shots. In which Dick and Mac are forced together by fate or friends and hook up. Because I apparently really like writing them hooking up.
1. Get used to this

**Get used to this**

* * *

><p>She decides to kiss him after she polishes off the bottle of Peach Schnapps.<p>

It's a weird sort of decision.

Parker and Wallace are laying on the floor of their shared apartment with her.

They were commiserating her break up with Max.

_She __was __free __to __kiss __anyone __she __wanted __now._

"So… who do you want to kiss Mackster? Mac-attack, Macavalian?" Parker had obviously had more of the single bottle of Schnapps then she had thought.

They were sharing, when it turned out that it was the only bottle of alcohol in the whole apartment and they didn't have a single fake id between them.

Mr. Mars had confiscated them the last time they had encountered him at a bar.

"Please say Parker, please say Parker." Wallace was whispering to himself, from her position on the floor she could see his fingers crossed.

"It's not Parker."

"Too bad for you. I'm a great kisser." Parker tosses a pillow across the room and it lands somewhere to her right and topples the stack of DVDs by the TV.

"Promise not to make fun of me?"

"Absolutely not, but you have to say it."

She sighs heavily, "Dick."

"Casablancas?" Wallace asks, just to make sure.

"Tall, blonde, aptly named?"

"He tried to kiss me once. He was drunk."

"So, you figure it's your turn to almost drunkenly kiss him?"

She shrugs.

"He's gonna think it means more than that. He's going to want to have sex with you."

"Well at least someone will." She grumbles and pulls her phone out of her pocket.

She finds Dick's contact number, prays that it's still the same from last summer when Logan had given it to her as an emergency precaution.

_Broke __up __with __Max. __Looking __for __a __party._

"What are you doing?" Parker asks sitting up and grabbing her phone from her hands before she can hit send, "A party? Really!?"

"I don't know. It's not like I can just text him '_hey __I __think __we __should __make __out __where __are __you?'_"

"Why not?" Wallace asks.

"It's a little blunt."

"Dick is like a baseball bat, blunt is his language."

Parker types something and drops the phone onto her stomach.

"What did you do?"

She looks at the phone quickly. Parker had sent a message to Dick.

_Hey. __Wanna __hook __up?_

"Hook up?"

"Well… you do, right?"

"I do not endorse this course of action." Wallace tells them, his finger in the air like he's trying to point out a point, "Unless he brings beer." Wallace pushes himself up and grabs Mac's phone from her hands.

"Oh my God! What are you doing!"

Wallace types a short message and tosses her phone back at her. She'd feel so violated if it wasn't Wallace and she wasn't a little buzzed.

_Bring __beer_

"Oh my God! That's it, no one else can use my phone!"

She goes to put her phone back in her pocket when it buzzes in her hand and her entire insides get tight, something clamping down on her lungs.

"Oh. My. God." She throws the phone at Parker who barely catches it, "What's it say..."

Parker reads the message, "He'll be here in ten..."

The room gets silent, or as silent as it can get with the stereo blasting sing along able Spice Girls.

She wants to say it's Parker's CD, but it's hers.

The ten minutes pass by in sobering confusion. Parker and Wallace start up a game of Smash Brothers and Mac brushes her teeth.

Three times.

Wallace lets him into the apartment after apparently buzzing him up. He's got a six pack of beer with him that Parker takes and shoves in their fridge taking two for herself and Wallace.

"Hey..." Dick smirks at her and barely seems to notice the swirl of chaos that is her roommates.

"Hey..." She returns, biting her lip, she reaches out and grabs his hand. It's hot, large and strong. She pulls him easily down the hall, towards her bedroom, not entirely sure if she wants to do this.

She opens the door and sits on the edge of her unmade bed.

The room is a mess. Clothes, of all variety, lie haphazardly across the floor and her dresser is a half open from this morning's rush. Every picture of Max has been ripped down, burned as an earlier part of the break up ritual.

She wishes it wasn't such a mess or, at the very least, that, maybe she had thought enough to throw her stuffed animals and her clothes in the closet.

Anything that didn't make her look like the slob she apparently was.

Dick is taking in everything with a hawk eye, devouring the scene like he plans to describe it in detail to anyone who will listen later.

She's about to ask him how he wants to do this, if at all, when he closes and locks the door.

She opens her mouth to say something, anything, maybe about keeping the door unlocked since she's not so sure she wants to go as far as door locking would suggest.

He takes off his shirt and the words die in her throat. Okay, so it's not like she hasn't seen him shirtless before, or anything, but shirtless in the dim of her room, with his eyes dragging across her? It's something that's for sure.

Dick closes the distance between them and drops to the bed beside her.

"You're wearing a lot of clothes Mac."

She nods, determined, and pulls her jeans off, tossing them across the already messy room.

He's smiling when she looks back at him and it's really a lovely smile.

She climbs into his lap, her hands running across his skin before they settle gently on his neck.

He opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out and she takes it as a sign that she's doing something right.

She kisses him.

Hard and biting and wet and he returns it with vigor.

His hands are on her hips pulling her down into himself and she can feel him, hard through his jeans.

It feels good for a lot of reasons.

She hadn't had sex with Max in two months. Apparently she just didn't do it for him anymore. She didn't seem to have that problem with Dick.

He wanted her, at least tonight and that was all she wanted right now.

She doesn't want to think about the morning, or anything, just right now.

He pulls back from her mouth and she whines softly at the loss, "You taste like Schnapps and toothpaste."

"Yeah, probably." She kisses him again, taking her time to taste him, slow, feeling the inside of his mouth with her tongue. He moans into her mouth, his fingers gripping her a little tighter, pulling her down urgently against the bulge in his pants.

She pulls away, "Cream soda, chocolate and... What is that? Flowers?"

"I had a bunch of Logan's prissy chocolate violet bonbons."

"It's nice."

"Maybe I'll steal some for you." He tells her pulling her sweater off, tossing it carelessly aside, "_Fuck_..."

"What?" She looks down at herself, now sitting on his lap in just her underwear. God, she should have changed into something nicer, something that matched at least.

"I just fucking _knew_ you were hot, but seriously..." He pulls his eyes up her body to look her in the face, he raises an eyebrow, "you're not a robot or something, right? Sex machine?"

"Only the kind James Brown was talking about." She pushes him back so he's lying on the bed looking up at her.

Yeah, she was going to have sex with him. She was going to make him say her name like it was a prayer.

She slides back and easily opens his straining pants.

He grabs her hands before she can even touch him, "You sure about this?"

She looks up at him, surprised he's even asking. He seems surprised, too.

"I'm asking because I like you as a person and shit."

She's not sure why, but the words expand something in her chest. That's actually really sweet, for Dick.

"Yes."

"Oh thank god, because, seriously, when did you get so hot?" He pulls her down against him and rolls until she's underneath him.

There is no foreplay, not really. He spends a moment enjoying what she was hiding under her bra after he hangs it on the post of her bed and slides two fingers easily into her when he repeats the move with her damp underwear, but she's pretty sure that has more to do with checking that she's wet than anything else.

When he slides into her she gasps, her fingers claw at his shoulders for purchase.

Yeah, bigger than usual.

Dick hisses into her hair and grazes her neck with his teeth.

She moves slowly against him and he moans softly into her ear. It takes him a moment, but he starts moving with her and she's not going to lie, he's great. She considers actually telling him, but figures the moans he's pulling from her are good enough.

She finishes quickly and he follows quickly behind like he was waiting for her.

When he pulls out she whines and he laughs.

He ties off his condom, drops it in her garbage and collapses beside her.

"Tired?" She asks pushing some of his sun-colored hair out of his face.

"Maybe..."

"So you don't want to go again?"

"Not _that_ tired." He pulls her onto him with a smile, "_Never_ that tired for you."

"Me?" She puts a hand to her heart like she's touched at the idea and, okay, maybe she is a little bit, but that probably has to do with the weird emotional place she's in right now and the fact that she's finally desirable again.

With very little effort, he's ready to go again and she slides a condom down onto him and then herself.

He makes the best noises, but her favorite is when he whispers her name into her skin when he finishes.

It's the last thing she hears before one more round exhausts her and sends her to sleep.  
>-<p>

She wakes up alone.

Not that she's all that surprised or anything.

Disappointed a little, she sort of liked Dick as a person and she adored him as a partner, she had thought somewhere during her sleep that maybe they could come to some sort of agreement.

He had split and she couldn't really blame him. If he liked her as a person, but didn't want to lead her on this was probably the best course of action.

Maybe it would be one of those nights that no one ever spoke about.

She forces herself out of bed thankful that her activities had driven the alcohol from her system, not so thankful that they had made her sore in other places.

She needs a coffee.

She throws on some clothes from the 'to be put away' pile by the dresser and ventures out into the apartment half afraid of what kind of greeting she would get.

She exits the hall in time for Dick to yell, "You're cheating!"

Dick and Parker are playing Smash Bros.

"She's just better than you man, deal with it, I have to." Wallace tells him as he comes out of the kitchen with four mugs and a carafe of coffee.

He pauses when he sees Mac, "Morning..."

Everyone looks up at her.

"Here." Dick tosses a bag at her. She barely manages to catch it. It's filled with chocolate violets.

"Dick..."

"I told you I'd get you some." He looks away from her, blushing, and unpauses the game in an effort to unseat Parker as Smash Brothers Champion.

Wallace puts the mugs and the coffee on the coffee table and takes his spot on the far side of Parker.

With a flush to her skin, she sits next to Dick.

"If you're not careful I could get used to this." She tells him quietly, popping one of the delicate chocolates in her mouth.

"Good." He smiles at her and abandons his game, leaving Parker and Wallace to duke it out, "I realized something last night." He tells her as he turns to face her, blocking the soft words from her roommates.

"Oh? What's that?"

"It's never going to be better than it is with you. I figured I'd stop testing out other girls. If that's okay with you."

He wants to date her, doesn't he? He wants to just be with her and honestly she's pretty sure he's right. It was never going to be better than him.

"Yeah, I'm okay with that."

"Great!" Dick gets up and drags her happily along with him. Setting the chocolates down on the table, he pulls her back towards her room.

"But the chocolates..." She pouts and is amazed to see Dick crumble a bit. He drops her hand and goes to retrieve the bag.

When he closes and locks the door, this time, her response is tossing her shirt at him.

"If you're not careful, I could get used to this."

"Good."


	2. Best way to spend a stake out

**The best way to spend a stake out**

* * *

><p>Mac didn't like hotel rooms.<p>

Any hotel rooms; any shape, size or star.

They brought back memories of Cassidy's skin and the feel of damp plastic wrapped around her.

She would much rather be outside stuck in the 'cable van' with Veronica and Logan.

She sat on the floor by the bed, arms wrapped around her legs, and tried to focus on anything but Cassidy Casablancas. She was finding it increasingly difficult as the elder brother was kneeling in front of her taking stock of the mini bar.

She was thankful that they didn't have much in common physically. She didn't think she could stand it if they looked similar. She was already trying so hard to keep herself together.

He turned to her and held out a tiny, open bottle of vodka. His arm outstretched and she leaned ever so slightly forward and plucked it from his grasp.

He stood, kicked the mini fridge closed and then flopped onto the bed, his legs dangling off the edge near her.

"I thought stake outs were supposed to be exciting..." he groaned, she could hear the creak of the bed and assumed he'd leaned up to drink from his own tiny bottle of something.

The vodka tasted like rubbing alcohol, but it was something to do other than feel phantom shower curtains wrapped around her body.

"Veronica always gets the 'exciting' parts...I'm normally at home, safe in front of my computer with a  
>Red Bull and some Red Vines..." Even she can hear the longing in her voice. She's looking deeply into the glass and barely even registers that Dick has moved until his face is by hers.<p>

He's resting his head on his forearm and looking at her.

"You're kind of boring." He tells her and she can tell by the look on his face that he's not trying to be cruel, he's just stating a fact. His eyes shouldn't look like Beaver's, they're a brilliant blue but there's a sad undertone to them now that breaks her heart how much they feel like Beaver's. She pushes herself away from the wall so that she can get the right kind of leverage to drain the tiny bottle.

She crawls along the cheap, rough carpet to the mini fridge and grabs another tiny bottle. A tiny bottle of rum finds its way down her throat.

"Whoa! Mac-Attack, what are you doing? Veronica's going to think I held you down and poured them down your throat." His voice is as far from being concerned and worried as she thinks it possibly could be.

There's a laugh to his voice.

She empties the mini fridge into her shirt and makes her way over to the bed.

"I don't like hotels." She tells him and they look at each other for a long, silent moment, she thinks he might actually understand what she means.

"You're at the suite enough." Is his response and she knows he doesn't have any idea what she's trying to say by not saying. Why would he get it? He has no idea that his little brother left her stranded without a scrap of clothing right before he tried to get Veronica to jump of the building with her own taser.

She stands up and can already feel the alcohol doing its job, the room swims ever so slightly and her legs feel heavy.

She lies down on the bed next to Dick and she has to empty another bottle at that thought.

Her and a Casablancas on a hotel bed, her stomach tightens.

"Slow down..." he takes a large chunk of the bottles and slides them onto his side, "Let me catch up." he downs three bottles in quick succession.

"Maybe if we botch this up V won't make us do it again." she tells him in a conspiratorial whisper and points to the open suitcase full of recording material.

The job is easy enough. The rooms are connected via a large vent system. The targets are in the next room, they just need to occupy the room until the deal, whatever it is, goes down.

Something Mac made clear to Veronica that she, or Logan, or even Dick, could do alone. However, the 'hotel' owner knew Veronica was a PI and Logan was banned for reasons no one but Veronica was interested in. So Dick could do it alone then...except it was a rent-by-the-hour kind of institution and a solo guest raised all kinds of alarms.

He just shrugs, his face flushing from the sudden increase in alcohol consumption, "We could do something to pass the time."

He's being suggestive and he rests a hand on her hip, it's heavy and hot, and nothing at all like the light cool touch of his dead brother. She shakes him off her hip.

She looks at him more fully, leans close to his face, and with a small gasp and a smile he moves closer to her, she watches him close his eyes and wet his lips.

With a short harsh laugh, she rolls away from him.

"I can't believe you thought I'd kiss you."

"It's not like I want to kiss you, Ghostworld," she can feel him roll in the opposite direction and a quick look over her shoulder insures that, yes, he now has his back to her and is pouting like a big baby, "I'm just bored."

She's got her eyes locked on her purse by the door, "V put Jenga in my purse." The bed moves suddenly and Dick is pulling the block game out of her bag before she can tell him not to.

He sits on the floor, on the far side of the bed, and begins to set up the game.

With a sigh, she removes herself from the bed to sit opposite of him. Playing Jenga in a rent-by-the-hour whore hotel is better than trying to drink away the memory of that night.

"So," Dick tells her with his eyes focused solely of the wooden blocks, "Since you're in such a drinkin' mood and I'm always in a drinking mood I figured we'd play a drinking game."

"Of course you did." she mumbles, but the idea doesn't seem all that appalling now that she's been plied with liquor, the warm, heavy feeling sinking into her bones, "What are the rules?"

He looks up at her with a bright wide smile, "Okay. Play regularly, but every time you get a block safely on top you can make the other person drink, and if you tumble it you have to drink."

"There's only two of us..."

"Uh huh."

"I'll have to drink every time it's your turn."

"Well we could play strip Jenga if you want." His hands are at the hem of his t-shirt, "I'll even give you a head start since I'm so good at it."

His shirt is flying across the room before she can reach her hand out to stop him.

"Drinking game only." She tells him sternly, trying desperately not to let her eyes wander down from his face to his bare chest, but the smug smile on his face tells her she's trying too hard to focus on his face. He can tell.

"Okay, you first." he nods toward the tower and she takes her eyes off him to focus on the wooden blocks.

She's successful, "Drink." she tells him and she watches as he tips half a tiny bottle into his mouth.

He stretches his arms out, cracking his knuckles. His skin is too close to her, his hands end only several inches away from her nose and she takes a deep breath but refuses to flinch. With a movement too swift for someone who's downing little bottles of unmixed booze down his throat like they're water, he places a new block carefully next to hers.

"Mac-Attack." he almost croons at her and, rolling her eyes, she tips her own drink into her mouth. The almost rubbing alcohol taste of straight something or other burns all the way down, but it feels surprisingly good.

They go on like that for awhile, drinking after every other turn, Dick's movements that of a practised drunk and her own movements getting increasingly fluid, or at least they feel more fluid in that 'as soon as she stands up all the sober left in her is going to rush away' way.

"No way, Casablancas. No way." She tells him, a smile splitting her face as she leans in close to the tower and watches as it teeters with her breath.

"Stop breathing on it, Mackenzie." he tells her as his fingers push a block towards her face. He gets up on his knees and, pushing her backwards with one hand, bends over the tower. She watches from her back as he gets the block safely out of the tower. He sits back on his heels and places the block on top. His arms out wide as they wait with bated breath to see if the teetering, holed tower will finally crumble.

After a moment it stabilizes and Mac looks up at him with wide blue eyes, "You're like a drunken master." she tells him in what would normally be an awed whisper, but in her drunken state is more of a slightly slurred amazement. He looks so pleased with himself.

"Drink up, Ghostworld." he waves her on and she finishes the last of her tiny bottle of gin.  
>She leans down on all fours and looks at the tower so hard she's worried it'll go over just like that.<p>

"You look good like that." Dick's voice breaks her concentration and her eyes go up to him. It takes her a moment to realize he means on all fours in front of him and she's not sure but she thinks her butt is sticking up in the air as well.

It must be the copious amounts of liquor in her blood because she looks up at him with a smirk and, wetting her lips, tells him, "I know." The way she says it would normally color her skin, but she takes great enjoyment in the fact that the words turn Dick's cheeks pink.

Biting her lip, she pulls out a block in the smoothest motion she thinks she's ever accomplished.

She waits a long moment while they both watch the tower teeter and wobble ever so slightly.

"No fucking way..." Dick whispers and she manages to place her block on the surprisingly unmoving structure.

"Drink up, Dickie." The smile that spreads across her face is full of drunken self satisfaction.

Dick finishes off his tiny bottle of whiskey, "You suck, Mac."

"Even if I did, you'd never know." she tells him and watches his eyes get wide, and she's pleased to see that he seems to have difficulty swallowing.

She wants to win.

She really wants to win.

Just once she wants to come out the victor against a Casablancas, even if he's the wrong one. She'll take what she can get.

She watches as Dick pulls the last safe block out of the tower. She steels herself and catches his eye as he starts to put the block back on the tower. She has her hands on the hem of her shirt and in one swift motion her shirt is up over her head and thrown onto the bed and the sound of the wooden blocks tumbling to the floor is heard throughout the room.

"Yes!" she exclaims, her arms up in victory, "Drink up, bitch!"

"You cheated!" She looks at Dick, his eyes are glued to her body and she is incredibly thankful that she's wearing her fancy bra. She likes the contrast of the black silk and lace against her creamy pale skin and Dick seems to agree.

"I thought you wanted to play strip Jenga?"

"Seriously!?"

She nods and hands him an unopened bottle of rye, "Now drink up." She thinks leaning toward Dick without her shirt on might be a bad idea, but he's looking at her like she's the best thing he's ever seen and the liquor is making her bold. He takes the bottle from her and twists the cap off tossing it somewhere behind him and drains the bottle before sending it across the room as well.

"No backing out now, Mackenzie."

"Set it up, Casablancas." she tells him firmly as she goes into the bathroom. She closes the door and can hear him yelling out about breaking the seal. She pulls down her pants just far enough to discover that she is, of course, not wearing the matching set. She's got to bring her A game if she doesn't want him to see that she's wearing her Christmas panties, bright jungle green boy shorts with candy canes on them.

She throws some cold water on her face and glares at the shower curtain before she goes back into the main room to see Dick looking back at her.

"Forget which underwear you're wearing?" He asks with a smile.

"I hope you're wearing underwear today. Don't want to make it too easy for me." She responds and sits across from him.

"Ladies first."

The games of Jenga somehow go much faster this time. Perhaps Dick is more focused now that it means that Mac will take off her clothes for him, or perhaps she's more focused on fucking him up so that she doesn't reveal her festive underpants. By the time Dick is in his boxers, a boring blue and black striped affair, they are out of tiny bottles.

"I'm going to need more to drink if you're not going to be wearing pants anymore." She crawls past him toward the fridge and pulls out the only alcohol left in the tiny thing. She has the regular sized bottle between her legs and pops the cork. The cork shoots across the room and Dick turns towards her in surprise.

"Celebrating something, Mac?" He asks, taking the bottle from her. His hand sliding along her leg before taking the bottle of bubbly to his mouth.

She is.

She's writing over her last memory of a Casablancas in a hotel room with another less traumatic one. In fact, as long as no one finds out that she's been getting drunk and playing Jenga with Dick she might actually be having a good time.

She takes the bottle from him and pulls some of the effervescent liquid from the bottle, "Maybe." she tells him and moves around him to the floor where she starts to set up yet another game.

"You're going down, bitch." He tells her as he starts to pull a block out of the newly reconstructed tower, but unlike so many other times he's called her that this time there's no malice in it and she thinks she finally understands how Dick manages to get laid so frequently. His body looks...well fantastic, all lean and broad and strong looking, like he could actually protect you from things. His hair is sun bleached and it looks so soft...so soft.

"Mac? You're turn."

"Oh shit." she shakes her head and tries to focus on the game at hand. She manages to take the block out all right, but as her hand goes to set it on top of incredibly sturdy tower, the light seems to catch Dick's hair as he moves and she drops the block onto the tower. As they watch in shock, the whole thing comes crashing down.

"Shit!"

"Distracted Cindy?"

"Shut up, Richard" she has to admit that she's surprised that he knows her actual name, she stands and starts to undo her pants.

"Slowly." he tells her with a leer.

"If you want it slow you do it!" she yells at him and takes a long drink from the bottle, she closes her eyes and leans back. She gives a start when she feels his hands on her waist. She looks down to find that Dick has crossed the small space between them and is now on his knees in front of her, his hands on the waist of her jeans, "What are you doing?" she asks and her voice is small.

"I'm taking off your pants...like you told me to." he looks up at her through his lashes and _Christ_ Dick Casablancas has no right being this good looking. His fingers graze her skin as he undoes the button of her jeans, his fingers running down her with the zipper.

"I didn't mean..." She bits her lip, but doesn't push him away. She just hopes she doesn't remember how amazing Dick looks, on his knees, taking off her clothes because it's a sight she wouldn't mind repeating.

He slides his hands into her pants, through the front, and she bites back a moan, his fingers are callused from surfing and he slides his hands around her body so they rest on her ass.

She is having trouble breathing and she hopes to God that the warmth in her gut is a product of the mass amounts of liquor and has nothing to do with Dick. His hands finally slide down her legs, pulling her jeans along with them.

"Merry Christmas to me." Dick whispers to himself and she can feel her cheeks get hot. He runs a hand along the soft cotton of her underwear and for a moment she's completely lost in the feeling of his large, hot hand on her, the pressure of him and the feel of his breath on her skin.

It's not until he hooks a finger in the band of her underpants that she snaps to attention. She knees him in the chest and he falls backwards into the scattered Jenga blocks.

"You haven't earned that yet." she tells him in what she hopes is a harsh tone.

"Tease." he tells her with a smile, rubbing his chest.

"You like it." she tells him and is surprised by the husky, deep quality of her voice. Seductive, that's what her tone is and she's standing there in front of Dick Casablancas in her underwear, made bold by the entire contents of the mini fridge and she might seriously be trying to seduce him.

Who could blame her really? Lots of people actually. This is Richard Casablancas Junior, Dick, for fuck sakes. It's just that he's so God damn pretty and the idea of a Casablancas man finally wanting her carnally feels like some sort of closure to her drunken mind. She looks down at him as he looks up at her with darkened blue eyes and wets his lips.

She tosses the almost empty bottle away and it smashes against the door and she drops onto Dick's lap.

"Wha-" he starts, his face flushed at her closeness. Her skin is pressed up against his, her arms wrapped around his neck, but he doesn't get much of a chance to finish his thought because her mouth is crashing against his.

His arms wrap around her quickly. His hot, heavy hands on her skin, climbing her back to the clasp of her bra, and his mouth is moving hungrily against hers. Even in her drunken haze she can tell that he knows what he's doing. She bites his lip and he opens his mouth to let a moan escape and deepens the kiss. She's pushing herself down into him and can feel that, yes, she can make a Casablancas hard.

He breaks from her mouth, "Fuck." his voice is rough and ragged, and it makes her proud that she made it that way.

He grinds up into her and it pulls a moan from her throat.

She puts her hands in his hair and it feels like silk, his hair is fucking sunshine, and his mouth moves to lavish her neck in small bites and kisses.

"You're so pretty..." She moans out and she can feel him smile against her skin. She grinds into his lap and can feel his hardness push up against the core of her and she's eighty percent sure that her body is calling out for his.

"I want you..." He whispers into her skin and it sets her body on fire.

"Why?" She asks with a smile against his skin before she starts to kiss his neck.

"Seriously!?" He asks and he pulls away to look at her. She wonders what he must see in her eyes because he suddenly looks sad. His hands smooth her hair away from her face like he actually cares about her and this isn't about how he has a raging hard on trying to push its way into her, "You should never need to ask why, you are gorgeous. You make smart sexy. Period." He pushes himself off the floor and drops her onto the bed, brushing empty bottles out of the way.

All the lights are on, she's never really done it with the lights on before, the occasional mid-afternoon, early evening romp aside, it had always just been because the sun was unavoidable, but Dick was towering over her looking at every piece of her body as if he was trying to force his drunk brain to remember at least this.

Her body freezes under his hands. Is she really going to let herself become a notch on Dick's bedpost? But he's looking at her with those darkened, broken, blue eyes, his sunshine silk hair and his Greek epic body and yeah, yeah she totally is.

Her body surges up to him and their mouths crash against each other as he flicks his wrist, her bra now just hanging by the straps.

"Do you have..." she asks and he fucking better or he's going to regret it for the rest of his life.

"Pocket." he points at the jeans on the floor and she pushes him down onto the bed, crawling over him to get at his pants. She hangs there for a moment because Dick is kissing her skin and it feels really, rather, good.

She grabs the foil square out of his pocket and lifts her arms in victory. It brings a good natured laugh out of Dick causing her to look down at him and realize just how different this is going to be from Cassidy. Everything about Dick is bright and Cassidy had been so dark. He plucks the rubber from her fingers and rips it open.

"You sure?" he asks and she's surprised he even asked.

"Don't I feel sure?" she grinds down into him and she can feel him in a gut tightening, heart pounding way, but Dick smiles because she's sure.

* * *

><p>She is woken up by a harsh tapping on her forehead.<p>

"Fuck off." She grumbles, rolling over, the rough polyester of the bedding rubs harsh and cold against her skin.

Bare skin.

Right. She had had sex with Dick. She grumbles and sinks further into the bedding searching her memory for the location of her underwear, or a shirt, it didn't even have to be hers. She wasn't feeling all that picky.

The tapping starts again on her bare shoulder.

"Dick, if you don't fuck off we are not having sex again."

"You mean we might have sex again?" His voice seems like it's on the other end of the room. Way too far away from the end of the hand on her.

She cringes and holds out her hand, "Veronica, could you hand me a shirt?"

"Sure thing." The hand retreats and a moment later a large shirt is in her hand.

Dick's.

She puts it on anyway and shifts slowly in the bed to face Veronica and the rest of the room.

Logan and Dick are on the far side of the room, Dick in just his underwear with his hair all messed up, and when he turns to help Logan pick up something she cringes at the red marks down his back.

"So, you have a good time?" Veronica asks sitting down on the bed and showing her a piece of dark green glass, the shattered bottle of bubbly.

The room is in shambles. Little bottles of alcohol are mostly just on the one side of the room, but the shattered green bottle and pants, and part of a lamp litter the other side of the bed.

She found her underwear, flung across the room and resting on the top of the shitty TV set.

"Yes." She answers honestly, looking at Veronica, judging her response. It's surprisingly neutral. Dick, however, is smiling that too bright smile.

Veronica leans forward and grabs something attached to the headboard.

Her shirt, in ribbons, knotted there.

She searches for the snapshots of that particular memory and feels warm all over again. Dominating a Casablancas had given her back a piece of herself, or maybe she just liked it so much she was putting more weight to it, but having him writhe and beg, the sounds still ringing in her ears, sent a maddening blush to her face.

"Yeah, it looks like it." She pinches the bridge of her nose, "Logan, do you have everything?"

"Yeah..." Logan was doing his best to not look at anyone or anything.

"Good let's go then." Veronica looks at her as she pushes herself up from the bed, "We can talk about this later when I don't have a full stomach. Okay?"

She nods and watches as Veronica and Logan leave the trashed hotel room.

Dick sits down on the bed next to her and she barely has the chance to turn towards him before his hands are on her, pushing and pulling until she's lying under him.

"You look good." He tells her smiling, running his fingers slowly down his own shirt.

She reaches up and puts her hands to his head, "How are you not hungover?"

"You worked a lot of the alcohol out of my system."

"Well my head throbs and my body aches..."

"I know the best remedy for that." He slides his hand up her bare leg, up under the fabric, and runs his fingers across her, "_Christ_ your already soaked. You thinking about something you liked about last night?"

"Maybe..." She gasps out, her eyes darting towards the door, wondering if it's locked.

She decides she doesn't care.


	3. Worth the effort

**Worth the Effort**

* * *

><p>It was sex quest again.<p>

The board was already littered with conquests and point scores.

The party was thumping upstairs. Points were getting drunk in the hopes of being able to use the '_I__was__drunk'_ excuse when they woke up next to a Pi Sig in the morning, but he was downstairs, alone with Mac.

He'd seen her slip into the basement and had followed her.

She hadn't noticed he was there yet.

She had a beer bottle in one hand and was examining his score.

Just his.

Looking at the pictures of the girls and scoffing. She pushed a pair of pink frilly underwear aside and looked at the girl's picture behind it.

She looked down at herself as if trying to judge something.

Yeah Mac, she has bigger tits then you. Pretty much everyone did.

Not that he really minded, he thought she was a cute shape.

She drains her bottle and puts it down on the coffee table behind her, without turning.

Normally he'd assume she was on some sort of secret mission for Ronnie, but she had transferred.

Only to Stanford, so not _that_ far away, but, still, he figured it was far enough for her nose to be firmly planted in the business of some poor sap up state rather than here.

So what the _hell_ was she doing? He didn't even know what she was doing at the party, or you know, any party. But especially a frat party, a Pi Sigma Sigma bacchanalia.

"So... I don't get points for being blonde, and I don't get points for being stacked, or in a sorority, or perky. I don't have any deformities or any variety, I'm not connected to anyone important." She turns to face him like she knew he was there all along.

Maybe she had, pretty much everyone was more observant than his Pi Sig brothers.

"What kind of points am I good for?" She finishes, moving across the room, her eyes on his, piercing in deep. She takes his beer, drinks some and sits on the couch across from the points board.

She's wearing a dress, black. He thinks it might be the fabled little black dress; the one girls wear to feel special, powerful and desirable.

It must be working for her because she pats the space next to her for him to sit down, close.

He sits down, so that the side of his body is pressed up against hers. Normally she would shy away from the contact, but tonight is different.

"So... How many?"

It wouldn't be the first time he's thought about how many points she'd be worth.

She was cute- 50 points.  
>Her petite frame scored her an extra 30 points.<br>Her degree of difficulty was high. She was too smart for this shit and_ God_ did she have a mouth on her- 40 points  
>A bonus 10 for being the only girl in her year.<p>

She was an easy 130 points. It was a pretty middle of the road score, nothing to be ashamed of or anything.

He wished she was still a virgin, not just because that's a 100 point bonus, but because the idea of her being tainted by someone else bothers him in a way that makes him uncomfortable.

Not that it really mattered to him how many points she was worth. He'd have sex with her in a heartbeat, something weird had happened between them freshman year. He didn't know what it was, they barely talked at all, but he wanted her.

"Well?" Her voice is soft and slow and pulls him in.

"130." He tells her, watching her eyes flick down to his mouth.

Christ does she want him to kiss her? How many beers has she had? What happened to her to make her come here in that dress and sit so close to him and tally up her points?

"That's not very high, is it... I'd hardly be worth the effort."

He turns her so that she's looking up at him, her body pressed up against his, "That's bullshit. Who told you that you weren't worth the effort?"

Her eyes fall to her lap and his blood boils because that is so much bullshit he can't even believe it.

Maybe he was maturing, but _every_ girl was worth a certain amount of effort and Mac was worth so much effort.

She was a long game.

He kisses her.

Her hands grab onto him and he's sure that she wants him to stop, but her hands pull him closer and her mouth moves against his.

The bottom of his stomach drops out when she slips into his lap.

She tastes like beer and, God, he wishes she tasted more like her, but he'll take what she'll give him.

She seems to be willing to give him a lot. She kisses him like he's special and her hands are between them working on his belt.

_Fuck_

_Fuck, __fuck, __fuck_

His hands are in her hair and up her dress, pulling her, and when she breaks from his mouth for air she moans a little, just this quiet little private thing that sends shocks right into his pants.

"Get a better belt." She tells him as she finally manages to get it open.

He likes that belt, but that's neither here nor there when she opens his jeans and slides her hands in.

Her hands are small and burning, and _Jesus fucking Christ_ when she touches him it's with conviction. The feel of her hands on him pulls a long, low moan from him and his head falls to the back of the couch.

She nips and kisses his exposed neck and, _holy shit,_ he's not even sure what to even do anymore. He's never been this far out of control before. He's always been in charge; moving, leading and dominate, but Mac is absolutely, a hundred percent, the boss of him.

She removes one of her hands from its painfully slow journey up and down him and he fucking whines. She grabs his hand and puts it on her breast.

He tries very hard to focus on her, pulling her dress down to expose her to his grabbing, desperate hands. He'll do whatever she wants as long as she'll keep touching him.

He has his mouth against her neck, he clamps down on her in surprise when she slides herself, wet and hot, down onto him, her underwear frilled and pulled to the side.

She moans wonderfully at the combination of feelings.

He looks up at her, her eyes half lidded, mouth open, her fingers gripping onto him hard.

"Mac..." He barely manages because when she looks at him, legs wide, fucking filled, bottomed out, he swears he's way too close to be playing without protection.

To be playing for keeps.

"What's the matter?" She asks and her voice is dark and slow and she wets her mouth before pulling her lip between her teeth.

"You sure you want to go bareback? Because I'm good if you're _good_."

She smirks at him and starts moving again. She grinds down on him and her fingers grip him tight, digging in to him painfully, and it's the best feeling ever.

So he takes back the virgin thing because sex smart Mac is probably the best thing ever. She keeps him close to the edge without ever pushing him off and he's desperate for it, for _her_.

He's so thankful that she pushes him back into the couch when she comes, so he can watch her; this arching mess of a thing, legs clamped and shaking on either side of him, her fingers scraping down his chest.

He holds onto her to keep her from falling off him and when she's crashing down she flops forward onto him, her arms wrapped around his neck, hugging him.

He's not sure when the last time someone hugged him was, but whoever, and whenever, it was pales in comparison to her wet and shaking around him, her breath coming in heavy puffs against his ear.

"You can come now." She tells him and it's a dark whisper in his ear. He's not sure if he means to, but he absolutely does what she says; a roar of noise into her skin, pushing up hard into her still shaking insides.

When he's done, she untangles them and stands up.

He watches her legs shake a little as she shifts her underwear back into place and finds himself proud of the little quake. He's never _really _cared if it was any good for his partners, he was selfish and everyone knew it, it wasn't like it was a surprise, but he looked up at Mac and wanted it to have been good for her too.

She pulls her dress back up and grabs his beer off the coffee table then disappears upstairs.

He waits there, exhausted and content, hoping she comes back with beer.

She doesn't.

* * *

><p>"How long are you supposed to wait before you call a girl so you don't seem desperate?" He asks Logan as he flops down onto the couch, looking at his phone.<p>

When he looks up at Logan he wishes he hadn't, he's looking at him like he's crazy.

"What happened at the party last night?"

"Nothing..."

"Chip says_you_ fucked your soul mate in the frat basement."

"Chip should keep his fucking mouth shut." He grumbles.

Mac wasn't his soul mate. He'd know if she was his soul mate right? Sure, no one had ever made him feel like she had last night, but it was just great sex, not soul mates.

He wasn't even sure he believed in soul mates.

Logan looks at him, long and hard, and he hates it. It's like he's just opening him up and reading what he wants to know.

"Call her, or go over to see her. Maybe that'd be better. Just don't sulk around here and be a big bitch about it."

"Like you can fucking talk." Dick pushes himself up off the couch and leaves the suite.

He's standing in front of Mac's dorm door trying to decide just how terrible this stupid idea was when someone taps him on the shoulder.

He turns to see Mac standing there with her arms full of textbooks.

"Uh..." He falters and it pulls a smirk across her face.

"Did you want to come in?" She asks pushing between him and the door to unlock it.

He can't manage to say anything, but he follows her into her dorm.

He watches her set her books down on her desk and move around the space. She's just in a Hearst sweater and some leggings, but she looks amazing. He thinks she'd look amazing in anything.

She sits down on the bed and looks up at him, "Did you need something, Dick?"

"Yeah..."

"If you need some sort of souvenir from last night my panties are by the closet, under the dress."

"I think you might be my soul mate." He blurts out.

The confident look on her face slides and she's looking at him with wide, scared eyes.

"Dick... I don't know what to say... The sex was great and all, but... Soul mates!?"

He's relieved to hear that she thinks it was great as well. He's pretty sure he'd die of embarrassment if she hadn't.

"I don't think I believe in soul mates Dick."

"Me neither." He sits down on the bed, next to her, "Maybe we can figure out if we believe in them together?"

"I don't know, Dick..."She shakes her head, "Is it even worth the effort?"

He pushes her down onto the bed so that he's above her, he grabs her face so she can't look away, "You are the only person I've ever met who was really worth the effort."

Her smile is soft and sweet, and he kisses it gently.

"I have one more thing to ask you."

"Yes."

"What?"

"I'll be your girlfriend... Oh god, was that not what you were going to ask?" She looks horrified.

"Oh god! Yes. Well… no, but yes, I totally, yeah, girlfriend. Absolutely."

She kisses him and he thanks God because he didn't know how much more rambling he would have done.

He's lost in her for a long moment, his hands pushing her legging down.

She pulls away from him, "Wait, what were you going to ask?"

"Oh, if this belt is better for you."

She laughs, but ultimately decides that it is.

He's pretty sure Logan and Chip were right about soul mates and he knows by the way she hugs him when she finishes that she believes it too.


	4. Last Honey Trap

**The Last Honey Trap**

* * *

><p>When she took the job with Veronica she always knew it would be like high school and Hearst all over again.<p>

Stale donut stake outs, using her Mac magic to pull personal, private files. She did not think she would be routinely trying to get men to cheat on their wives.

_Honey trap Mac._

That's what Veronica and Wallace had started calling her when they thought she couldn't hear them.

"I don't like this Veronica. Can't we hire someone to do this kind of thing?"

_No and stop talking into your cleavage, people are starting to look._

Veronica's voice came in loud and disdainfully clear. She was in one of the hotel rooms monitoring her. She would, a hundred percent, prefer to be up there with her eating red vines and watching the unfortunate drama play out on her laptop.

Like the good old days...back before she had become some sort of mid-life crisis magnet.

She sat alone at the bar, nursed her cocktail and waited, waited for the target to hit on her, hopefully. She hated initiating contact, it made her feel like a streetwalker.

It was ridiculous, she sat there in a black silk dress that screamed temptation. As far as she was concerned she might as well have written _This is a __trap _on her body, in chocolate sauce, and been less obvious_ ._The dress was cut so it hung open in the back, a low, wide cut, and she was fairly certain that the only things keeping this dress on were the sleeves and her willpower.

She crossed and uncrossed her legs, going slow, and sweeping her eyes across the room.

Someone sat in the seat beside her. She turns to see just how much she is going to hold this over Veronica for. How long she'll be bringing up that creepy, old guy, with no hair, to win arguments.

She almost drops her glass.

She is winning every argument for the rest of their lives. She is going to hold this over Veronica's head until her deathbed.

"No." She whispers as the man looks at her.

_I'm __sorry_

"Mac?" Dick's voice is surprised. He leans back in the stool and looks up the back of her, as if confirming that the front and back of her were actually the same person and not an optical illusion, before smiling brightly at her, "Buy me a drink?"

"Why would I buy _you_ a drink?"

He's getting this all wrong, he's supposed to buy her a drink. That was how this shit worked. He buys her enough drinks to make him feel like he could score and then try and take her to his room.

"Because you look like your here to get fucked and I'm the only one here under 40." She wants to wipe that smirk off his face, but there's a voice in her ear that tells her to buy him a drink.

She grits her teeth and buys him a drink.

Scotch, more expensive than the absurd dress she was wearing and hopes to God her credit card holds out long enough to get paid.

Whenever the hell that was going to happen again. She hasn't lived paycheck to paycheck since right after college and she found it didn't suit her at all.

Veronica was used to this. All the money she had had in New York went to good, rent and her student loan.

She hadn't lived that way in years, but she had nothing but burnt bridges behind her so she slides her leg over the other until the toe of her heel is resting against the back of Dick's leg.

"What are you even doing here, Mackenzie?" Dick asks setting his hot hand on her knee, the silk slides eagerly away from his hand as he slides it up towards her lap.

He doesn't care why she's here as long as this conversation ends with them in a bed, or against a wall or the floor of the elevator, or the bathroom counter. He didn't seem picky as long as it ended with him inside her.

She feeds him the line about breaking up with her boyfriend that she always used. That he had cheated on her and Veronica had convinced her to go out and let herself get hit on tonight to feel better.

They usually shamed the fictional Tom, telling her how wrong he was and how amazing she looked, how they would never cheat on her.

Dick, however, just smirks, "Still can't keep them interested, huh Ghost World," he slips his hand down between her legs and she forces herself to relax, she wants him to want to take her to his place, "I can show you some things if you want... So you can keep the next one."

He's the first one that doesn't imply that the next one would be him and she finds it refreshing. She leans forward, letting her legs part a little for him, and sets her glass on the bar. She wants to whisper into his ear all the things she knows that helps her 'keep' them, about that thing she can do with her tongue, or the fact that her last 'boyfriend' had been named _Stephanie_, and that she knew things after all these years that would make him shiver with pleasure for days.

She ops for the answer that isn't going to get her an earful of Veronica.

"I could show you what I can do..." She lets her mouth graze his ear as she whispers and his fingers dig into her leg.

She wonders if he was trying to fake her out because he doesn't say anything for a long time and then he gets up from his spot, throwing down some bills onto the bar before he grabs her hand and leads her out of the bar.

Had he forgotten that the drinks were on her? She decides not to say anything. She's poor, she could use a free drink.

He opens the passenger door of his sports car for her and she slips in completely unworried that she flashes Dick, rather a lot of leg as she does so.

He jumps into his own seat and sends them speeding away from civilization.

He puts his hand on her leg again, his thumb rubbing against her skin as he slips his hand up her dress.

"The dress is nice." He tells her, not taking his eyes off the road. He's watching the road with such intense focus she's half afraid he's going to set it on fire. The part of her that isn't occupied with the fact that Dick's hand is slipping between her legs and is on its way to a very private and _very_ unguarded area, that is.

The dress didn't really allow for underwear, it dipped too low for anything that would show a line.

"It's okay."

"What's wrong with it?" By the sound of his voice, low and heavy, it sounds like he thinks she should wear it all the time, everywhere.

"It's not very comfortable." She replies honestly, sure that it'll get her some sort of vulgar response about how she should take it off.

He says nothing, just grips her thigh a little tighter, so she baits him.

"The best part of this dress is taking it off."

That's a lie. It's awful. She has to have Veronica help and the fact that she is a hundred percent naked underneath, and neither of them wants to have her see that, makes the entire thing an ordeal.

Dick, however, makes a low noise in the back of his throat and pulls sharply off the road.

He undoes his seat belt and then hers.

"Dick... I was just-" his mouth is on hers before she can tell him she's joking, before she can get out that this is a set up and she has sleeping pills in her purse that were going to make their way into his drink once they got back to his place; that he'd wake up in his bed alone and unsure if last night had just been a 'too drunk to remember the good stuff' kind of night.

He kisses her like he _needs_ her, and his hand finally makes it up her leg to its goal and he moans into her as his fingers come into contact with her wet skin.

He breaks from her mouth in time to enjoy the moan that falls from her.

Okay Dick, Dick is very good at this. The kiss and the feel of his mouth on her neck and his fingers trying desperately to get inside, rubbing her, is fucking amazing.

It pushes all thoughts of her _mission_ out and replaces it with thoughts about how soft his hair is, how hot and wonderful his skin is, and how if she lifts a little and widens her legs like...

He slips his fingers eagerly into her and this time she doesn't try to bottle the satisfied moan. She lets it be as loud as it wants and Dick slides her hand into his own lap.

She runs her hand greedily over the bulge in his pants. He's panting in her ear and it sounds wonderful.

She has felt wanted quite frequently since Veronica decided to use her as bait, but it had always come as a cold, slimy feel.

This, however, is a fantastically hot and fevered kind of feeling.

Right before Dick sends her over the edge, right there on the side of the road, she decided that he isn't getting the sleeping pill treatment.

She is going to fuck him until he passes out.

She has her hands full of his jacket as she comes, pressed up against his fingers trying to drive him deeper and she comes wet against his hand.

He doesn't wipe it off on her leg like she expects him to. He does up her seatbelt and, licking his fingers, drives off towards his house again.

* * *

><p>They don't say anything again until they park in the garage.<p>

"Here." Dick opens the door to the house for her and lets her in. She has the distinct feeling that he has her go ahead of him so he can watch her move.

They make it to the stairs before Dick's hands grab her waist to stop her. She turns to see what he's doing, but he clucks his tongue at her until she turns back around.

She can't see what he's doing, or about to do, but the anticipation is building up in her.

He presses his mouth against her exposed back. She makes a soft, low pleased sound and grabs the railing.

He bites and kisses his way up to her neck, his breath coming in ragged puffs against her skin. He wraps his arm around her middle and pulls them flush against each other.

She can feel him, hard, against her, rocking himself against her, his fingers digging into her hip. She slips her hand between them and, knowing what she's doing, he allows the space between them.

She flicks his belt open with one hand and easily undoes his pants.

"You're not wearing underwear either?" She laughs a little too herself, what a pair they make.

Not that they make a pair or anything. She's not delusional or anything. They've barely spoken to each other since he sat down next to her. This was sex, but the smile she can feel against her skin does something to her insides.

She puts her hand over his and pries him away, enjoying the whine he makes way more than she should.

She turns around and, with her hands balled up in his, no doubt expensive, shirt, she pushes him against the wall.

"What are you doing..." He asks. The words aren't unkind, just curious, but when she drops to her knees in front of him it's answer enough for him.

_What __are __you __doing? __Do __you __need __me? What's __happening!? __Is __he __forcing __you!? __Mac! __Mac, stop __you __don't __have __to __do __this! __Mac!_

Veronica's voice blasts in her ear, but she focuses on Dick who's watching her in the dimly lit stairwell, his hands pressed hard against the wall.

She watches him as she takes him into her mouth.

Eye contact was one thing she did _really_ well. She watches him whimper and try to keep his eyes locked on hers as she lavishes him with attention.

When she does that thing with her tongue he turns into a mess, she can feel his legs shake and is suddenly very worried that he'll fall down the stairs.

He moans out her name as he finishes in her mouth.

There's a lot, but she swallows, making a little face at the taste.

She cleans him off with her tongue and the only word he can manage is her name.

She stands up, brushing off her dress, and looks at him. He's a mess and it's only fair since he had been so single-minded about getting her off in the car.

"Bathroom?" He points to the door at the top of the stairs.

She locks herself in and runs the tap.

"Veronica..." She whispers as she looks through the cabinet. It's devoid of anything more interesting than toothpaste and tums.

_What's __going __on __Mac? __Did __you __just __give __Dick __a __blow-_

"Yes."

_Gross, __Mac, __that's __so __gross. __He's __not, __like, __forcing __you, __or __anything, __right __because __I __can __have __the __cops __over __there __in __a __heartbeat __to __throw __that __slime-_

"He's not."

_What's __going __on __Mac. __I __mean, __we __need __the __information, __and __all, __but __not __enough __for __you __to __whore __yourself __out._

Like she can even say that. She's been practically whoring her out ever since it turned out that men of a certain age and nature wanted her.

This is the first time she hasn't felt like a whore.

_Mac? __Mac, __are __you __okay?_

"I'm fine, Veronica. I'll call you when he passes out." She pulls the wire off, dropping her ear piece into the empty soap dish.

Dick's bedroom is easy to find. It's the open door at the end of the hall.

Dick is sitting on the bed, his head in his hands, not looking at all like she thinks a man about to get laid should look.

"Dick..."

He looks up, startled, like he hadn't expected her to still be there.

Maybe he heard her talk to Veronica, maybe he thought she was bailing on him.

"Hey."

She smiles softly and moves to the bed. She stands in front of him, "I lied about the dress."

"What?" She picks up his hands and puts them on her waist.

"It's a bitch to get off. Think you could help me out?"

The smile returns to his face and she's glad because his smile is kind of great and warms her up.

He stands up, holding her close to him, and slips the dress down her body like its nothing, capturing her arms in tight silk. He takes advantage of the fact that she can't move her arms. Pressing kisses against her collar and chest, biting, licking and sucking at her until her breath is coming hard and uneven.

He helps her arms out and tugs at the hem of the dress, watching it pool at her feet so she's standing in front of him in nothing but her heels and a predatory smile.

"I take back anything _anyone_ has ever said about you not being able to keep a boyfriend..."

She pushes him back onto the bed and sits on his hips. He's shifting, rocking them back and forth, desperately trying to free himself from the fabric of his pants.

She ignores his efforts and instead focuses on taking off his shirt.

His hands are hot and heavy as they wander across her exposed body. She gets his shirt all the way open and runs her hands up his chest, pausing to feel his heart thump wildly under her palm.

He can't seem to take any more because he grabs her and flips her over so she's spread out under him, her heels scraping up his calves.

He kisses her again. Hard and deep, like he means to never come up for air, like he means to lose himself somewhere in her kiss.

He plunges into her, capturing the noises she makes like he feeds on it.

It wouldn't be the first time she has thought of him as an incubus and, when he moves against her and seems to just devour the sounds she makes, she's sure it won't be the last.

She lets him do whatever he wants to her, bending her and biting and soothing the bites with his mouth. It might be because she plans to ride him until he passes out, but it probably has more to do with the fact that it's fantastic and that she can barely do anything other than respond to him.

When she finishes this time he doesn't even pause and it maintains the euphoria until he finishes.

His hands full of bedding, hers ripping at his shirt, her legs desperately pushing him further in, spurring him forward with the point of her heels.

The sounds he makes in her ear are shuddering and unchecked, and littered with swearing and her name.

He rolls off of her and lies beside her, huffing for breath. She wants to make fun of him for huffing like a dancer off stage, but she's struggling to regulate her own breathing and heartbeat.

"You're wearing too many clothes." She tells him, pushing unhappily at his pants.

With a soft, good natured laugh, he tosses his pants and shirt off.

"Better?"

She pushes herself up, and she straddles him. While looking at the mass of hot skin, she pinches him.

"Ow." He tells her pointedly.

"What are you, like zero percent body fat? You weirdo."

He answers by pulling her down so he can kiss her.

He has a quick recovery time, _thank god,_ and she takes full advantage of it.

He reaches out to grab her hips as she fills herself with him, but she slaps them away.

"Wha-"

"Stay. It's my turn."

He nods obediently and grabs onto the footboard. His eyes focused intently on the way she moves.

She misses the feel of his hands on her, but the sounds he makes as she moves against him, berating him when he tries to move, are more than worth it.

Next time though, she wants his hands all over her.

She bends towards him when she comes, wrapping her arms around him and her legs shake a little as she finishes. She moans in his ear and her fingers grip tight, trying to touch more of him than is probably even possible.

He follows her off the ledge, pulled over by who knows what combination of things, but he pulls the footboard apart. Her senses full of his roar of noise, the feel of him trying to become a part of her, and the clatter of wood onto the floor.

He doesn't pass out, but when she pulls off him, his eyes are barely open.

She smiles at him and makes to roll further away, but he grabs onto her and keeps her close.

"Since when is Dick Casablancas a cuddler?" She asks because that is, without a doubt, what is happening here.

"Since tonight." He whispers into her hair and the words sink into her.

She isn't much of a cuddler either, but this is nice.

"You can keep me if you want." He tells her and she looks up at him, but he's fallen asleep.

She grabs a pillow from the other side of the bed and puts it under his head.

He rolls away, but when she gets up from the bed his voice pierces through the sudden quiet.

"Are you leaving?"

"Do you want me to?"

"No. Come back to bed... We can get in properly if you want."

She picks up his button up from the floor and puts it on.

"You get into bed properly and I'll be back shortly."

He sits up and looks at her, "You look fucking outstanding."

She looks down at herself in his light colored button up and her dark heels.

"Go back to bed." She tells him with a smile, watching him settle into the bed the right way around this time.

She has her hand on the door when he talks again, a heavy welcoming voice from under the covers.

"The safe is in Logan's closet."

"The safe..."

"You're going to give Veronica the file, right? The safe is in Logan's closet and the code is Beaver's birthday." He grumbles out and turns in the bed again.

She finds the safe and gets the stack of papers Veronica wants. She flicks through them out of her own curiosity.

The Guitereze cousins...

So nothing to do with the case Veronica is supposed to be working on at all.

She doesn't even know why she's surprised.

She decides something while she's waiting for Veronica.

This is her last _honey __trap_.

She isn't really upset with Veronica for using her like this. She had gone along with it and when Veronica had asked her a million times if it was alright, the first couple of times she had done it, she had told her it was fine.

It doesn't feel fine anymore.

There's a soft knock on the door before it opens. Veronica still has the keys Logan gave her.

"Hey... You alright?" Veronica asks, taking in the fact that she is wearing Dick's button up and nothing else.

"I'm good, here." She hands Veronica the folder and she clutches it to her chest.

"Did you look at..."

"Yes."

Veronica looks down at the floor between them as if waiting for the reprimand she knows must be coming.

"Veronica, I'm not going to do this anymore...this honey trapping thing... It doesn't feel right..."

"I asked you if you were okay with it..."

"I know and I thought I was, but I'm not."

Veronica nods, "I don't want you to do anything you don't feel comfortable with. I love you."

"I know. I love you, too, but the next creepy, old philanderer is going to hit on you."

"Okay." Veronica makes to leave, but stops at the door, "Do you want a ride home, or anything?"

"No, I'm going to stay..."

Veronica watches her carefully for a moment, taking in everything about her like she was some mystery she could solve.

"Okay, but let him know that if he hurts you I still know a thing, or two about disposing of a body."

Mac scoffs, "I'm just going back to bed. We aren't going steady, Veronica."

Veronica throws her a look that tells her that she knows more about what's going on than she does and disappears out the front door, locking it behind her.

Mac makes her way back to the bedroom. Dick is in the middle of the bed staring up at the dark ceiling.

"Why are you awake?"

"I was listening to see if you'd leave with her or not." Dick slides over to make room for her and she steps out of her heels before climbing into bed.

Dick's arm quickly wraps around her and pulls her close to him.

This is nice.

Nice doesn't seem like the right word...

This felt right.

"I meant what I said." He tells her quietly, his voice thick with sleep.

"What?"

"You can keep me if you want..."

"You want to be my boyfriend?"

He shrugs, but she can feel that he's holding his breath, waiting for her response.

"Okay." It's not like they can't just break up if this turns out to be a terrible idea.

She has a feeling though, when he kisses her softly, that it's not a terrible idea at all.


	5. I Never

**I Never**

* * *

><p>AN: this has a large chunk of Parker/Mac

* * *

><p>"I never...went through that <em>sexy phase <em>in college." Dick tells her, watching her carefully.

They are sitting on an old mattress in her parents' basement. He had been roped into helping her move to her new apartment, the not quite a dive, not the beautiful condo in a high end neighbourhood. Apparently throwing in your lot with Veronica wasn't exactly lucrative.

Her parents were out of town and not back until late, her brother was who knows where and Veronica was on a case. So when the door had closed behind them and locked them in they had had nothing to do but wait.

They were passing their time with a pack of beer they found in the ancient fridge and a classic game of _I never_.

He had already found out and bonded over the fact that Mac had never been on a rollercoaster, which he promised to fix for her. He thought it was cute that she had never been in the ocean despite practically living beside it her whole life, crazy, but cute.

They had gotten past all the vindictive _I Nevers,_

Never gotten married,

Never hit on their step mother,

Never used their computer knowledge for evil,

Never made a sex tape-she had drank, but he was pretty distraught to find out it wasn't for public viewing.

They had gotten back to the more fun ones and she got more and more appealing as the game went on.

He watched Mac drink for her sex phase in college and he nearly choked.

"Tell me about it."

"No."

"Come on, Mac. The more you don't want to talk about it the more I'm going to think it was with Parker." He goes to a very pretty place, Parker spread out under Mac, kissing her own taste off Mac's pretty, pink lips.

He notices that, when he looks across at her, she's blushing and fiddling with the label of her beer.

Oh, God.

_Thank you, Lord._

"If you tell me about this one thing, Mac, I'll do whatever you want. You want me to pay rent on that condo uptown for you? Done. You want me to burn my surfboard? Done. Just tell me about the time you fucked Parker."

She cringes at the phrasing, but seriously looks like she's considering it.

"Anything I want?" He nods, "and you can't tell anyone."

He nods furiously because, please God be merciful, he's getting a little uncomfortable in his pants just knowing that it happened at all.

Mac finishes off her beer, setting it beside the mattress with the rest of her empties, and, with a sigh, she paints the picture.

Freshman year, only a week before she started dating Bronson, Parker comes back to the dorm after another failed date.

* * *

><p>"Boys are stupid." Parker complains, crawling into Mac's bed and wrapping her long arms around her, pulling her in tight.<p>

She's drunk.

"Let's just date each other instead." She grumbles, her soft skin pressed up close to hers. She is, very obviously, just in her underwear; Parker's hands are hot and wandering.

"Are you asking me out Parker?" She freezes as Parker's slender, delicate hand slips under her nightgown, her long fingers trailing slowly across her underwear and stomach.

Normally Parker ended up passing out right before her hand actually touched anything of interest, but tonight seemed different.

More focused.

Parker's hand reaches its goal tonight. Her hand, hot and soft, grasps her small beast, rubbing the skin slowly, her fingers seeking out and then rolling her nipple between them.

Mac hates herself for the moan that leaves her mouth. She and Parker didn't have this sort of relationship, and Mac had only ever wanted this sort of relationship when she was drunk and sad and thought dating her best friend would just be easier.

Parker moans softly against her skin in response.

"Let's just be together, just tonight... Please..." Parker whispers, begs, and she knows she can't say no. Not when her sweet, wonderful Parker was holding on to her desperately, begging her.

There had been a lot of talk about 'getting back on the horse that threw her', but she came home early from every date, a little drunk and a lot scared and crawled into bed with her, like Mac could protect her this time.

And she would.

"Just tonight, because I love you. Okay."

Parker nods and lets go of Mac, her hand sliding back down to rest, trembling, against the band of her underwear.

Mac rolls over, forcing Parker to slide under her to stay on the twin bed.

"So this isn't exactly my specialty." She tells her softly, looking down at her pale skin and vibrant purple, matching underwear.

"I know me neither... This is what college is for right?" Parker's voice is soft, but, thankfully, the humor is returning to her voice.

"So what... We should kiss, right?" Mac asks, she's kissed all of one person romantically and that hadn't exactly gone so well in the long run.

Parker nods and lifts her head to capture Mac's lips.

Parker's kisses are surprisingly like Cassidy's, soft and nervous, and it scares her how similar it is. That if she closes her eyes she could easily pretend the kisses are from Cassidy, some strange apology from beyond the grave.

She loses herself in Parker's delicate mouth, soft and warm. She slips her tongue easily into the blonde's mouth. She tastes like beer and... and something oddly sweet...

Her hand slides down Parker's body, soft, warm skin, lean. Her fingers skim across Parker's underwear and the girl moans into Macs mouth.

All thoughts of Cassidy drift away at the sound of her feminine moan and the feel of her hot, wet core, calling out, begging from behind the thin fabric.

Nervously, she presses two fingers against the damp warmth and rubs her slowly. She watches as Parker's breathing becomes labored and her eyes flutter closed, her body arching up against her, pressing herself against Mac's fingers.

She's not sure what she plans to do, if she just hopes to rub Parker until she finally passes out or if she's in this holding pattern because Parker is moaning softly in her ear and it sounds and feels so good to be _wanted_.

Parker pulls Mac's nightgown up and off, dropping it off the small bed.

"You're so pretty..." Parker gasps out, her voice low as her hands reach out to fondle her.

Soft and slowly, she pulls Mac closer to her and she has to stop her ministrations to keep from tumbling onto the floor.

Parker's tongue flicks out nervously against her breast and the gasp she makes is more than enough to convince Parker that she should keep going.

Heat is pooling in her as Parker takes her into her mouth, her hand working on the other, her movements getting more confident.

She runs her fingers through her beautiful, blond hair as she nips at her experimentally.

She pushes Parker down, away, and she looks up at her worried that she had done something she didn't like.

She doesn't say anything. She just slides her fingers past the bright purple boarder and touches Parker. Touches the soft, wet for _her_ folds and can't believe that she's actually doing this. This is someone else's body.

But Parker makes a mewing kind of noise out of her name. Is begging and Mac can't manage to say no to the girl writhing below her.

One finger slips easily into her soaked core. She's hot and wet and made of silk, tight around her slowly pumping finger.

The moan that pushes out of her is filled with need, she needs more, so Mac obliges and slips another finger in.

She bites her lip as Parker writhes under her, pulling her down to kiss her, hot and wet and desperately.

Mac feels around for the spot that will do it for her roommate, that will make her fall apart in the best way, to make her feel some sort of control over her body again, to not fear the feeling anymore because she is safe with her.

She finds it and works hard to finish her off and the sounds Parker is making are making her ungodly wet and she needs something.

She takes Parker's hand from the sheets and places it against her underwear.

Parker, even in the gasping haze, understands and does her best to slip her own fingers into her underwear.

No one has touched her there since Grad Night. Hell, she's barely touched herself, but Parker feels safe and the sound of her coming gets her hot for one of the first times in a long while.

Parker's body tightens up around her fingers and there's a rush of wet, and she feels proud of herself.

The blonde is useless for a few minutes. She wraps her arms around Mac and kisses her softly.

Parker's hands move softly down Mac's body until they slip back into her underwear, her long hot fingers rubbing her. Parker doesn't seem big on the idea of foreplay, her fingers slipping right into her and pumping her desperately.

The blonde pushes her frantically over the edge.

Mac comes with a long, low moan that makes Parker smile.

They fall asleep tangled up in each other, safe, and don't talk about it again.

They don't need to.

* * *

><p>It is at that moment that Dick decides that he should get Mac to play 'I never' with him more often.<p>

That is absolutely worth whatever she wants from him.

He leans towards to her, puts his hand on her bare leg, slipping it under her skirt and presses his mouth against hers.

She kisses him back, but she pulls away slowly, "Why did you do that?"

"Did you not like it?"

"Why did you kiss me?"

He smiles and kisses her again, "I think you should be my girlfriend."

She looks at him, wide-eyed. "What? Because I fooled around with Parker once? You're insane." She tells him, but she initiates the kiss this time, moving towards him so that his hand slides up her leg.

"Yeah, maybe, but I still think we should date."

"Why on earth would we want to do that?" She kisses him again and pulls him towards her until she's on her back, looking up at him.

"I'm pretty great I'll have you know, and I have it on pretty good authority that you like me, too." He smiles down at her and she bites her lip.

_God_, she is so pretty. She has her hands on his belt and easily undoes it.

"Aren't you worried I'll leave you for Parker?" She asks, laughing a little as he pushes her legs apart.

"I can see it now," he presses a kiss to her neck as she pulls him free from his pants, "She'll pound on the window of the church, calling your name, and you'll leave me at the altar." He kisses her soundly as he pushes her underwear aside, "I'll just have to do everything I can to make sure you come back to me after you realize you've made a terrible mistake."

"So we're getting married now? You move awfully fast."

"I'll show you how fast I-" he buries himself in her, she is wet and hot and amazing, god how much time do they have until someone comes to get them out of the basement because he wants to take his time with her... Wait... That's not..."

Mac leans up and kisses him to shut him up. When she pulls back, she's smiling softly at him, "I get it Dick. I like you, too." She moves slowly against him, her breathing getting heavier in his ear.

"So you'll date me then."

"Alright, but only until Parker breaks up our wedding."

He's not sure if she realizes exactly how much time she's giving him or if she intentionally makes it pretty much forever, but he'll take it.

He just hopes that her parents don't come home early. Making love to their daughter on an old mattress in their basement? Probably not the best way to meet his future in-laws.


	6. Chase Demons

**Chase Demons**

* * *

><p>He smells like him.<p>

She tells herself that's not what this is.

This is just college craziness. This is just playing the field and being young and crazy.

It is not because he smells like him, it's not, because wrapped up in his sheets she can pretend it's not him at all.

That's not what this is.

This is just a one night stand for the sake of being young and wild and free and if she's going to do that with anyone, why not Dick. She at least knows he's clean and not going to think this is something more than what it is, and it's just a one night stand because she's getting antsy and she can't take care of everything herself.

It has nothing to do with the anniversary of his brother's death.

Nothing.

His mouth is hot and wet and it's nothing like what she wants because it is so unavoidably Dick Casablancas. She pushes at his shoulders and he pulls away easily.

"What?"

"Maybe no kissing?" She offers and Dick's eyes narrow, confused. It's not hard to cause that face, he was never the smart one.

"Never gotten complaints before." He tells her, leaning back away from her. She can see more of his surprisingly pale skin and his too broad torso. She wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

He is good, it's just...wrong.

"What's wrong with you?" He asks, rolling off of her and settling at her side.

She's suddenly ice cold without his hot skin against hers.

Nothing's wrong with her. After all there's nothing wrong with wanting to sleep with Dick because he reminds her of her psychotic, dead boyfriend.

No, nothing's wrong with her at all since she's trying to pretend that Dick's strong, thick arms are that of the spindly, lean Cassidy and there's certainly nothing wrong with her that she's trying to rationalize this whole thing away by that fact that his bed is so much better than hers.

"Do you want me?" She asks, hating how desperate and nervous she sounds. She should be better than this, she's had other boys, they've wanted her, why does his last name make everything different? His DNA, his shared traits, make it so much more than everything else.

This is some sort of closure thing, or maybe it's an opening because it feels raw and new, like everything just happened.

He closes in on her, a soft look in his darkened eyes, his body weighing down on hers, his knee between her legs, forcing her legs wider to accommodate him.

"Yes." He tells her and the word is soft and hot against her skin. His fingers run down her body and she can't help but arch up into him, "Do you want me?" He asks and she's surprised at the tone, like he knows what this is, that he knows she'd rather be with the younger...dead... like he's always known. From the moment he accepted the drink she'd bought him.

He needs this to be about him.

She can't help but have it not be and now she feels awful for a completely new reason.

She's silent for too long, she knows it, because his eyes pull away from hers and his body stills.

She closes her eyes tight and thinks about Dick, about the super hot boy who's as broken, if not more than, she is.

About the boy who apologized, about the boy who's been softer and kinder, who needed her.

"Yes." She tells him, her hands reaching out for his skin, "Yes."

His mouth is on hers again and it's still so incredibly, undeniably him, but it's okay this time, somehow, because she can do both, she can chase away demons for the both of them.


	7. Wrong Room

**Wrong room**

* * *

><p>He fucks her on Cass' bed and it feels like revenge; for leaving and killing and raping and leaving, mostly for leaving.<p>

Call him a monster for it, he probably is one, but he'd rather be in bad guy exile with his brother than here alone.

Well… maybe not _right_ here because virgin is always a great place to be.

It's her first time and it seems mean to practically rip this gift from her while on top a pile of Cassidy's clothes, but she's angry at him, too, and the anger seems to take away some of the sting for her.

They aren't even drunk.

He'd found her number in his phone and sent her a message. Stone sober. She'd driven over and offered it up.

He knows if Ronnie was in town she wouldn't have even considered it, but she's not. Little Mackie is all alone, left a virgin, and wondering why she couldn't get his brother off. If there was something wrong with her.

He was glad to offer his opinion and she was too desperate not to say yes.

So he fucks her and knows that something had to have been wrong on Cassidy's end because she kisses like she _needs_ him and her body is this sensitive, reactive mess of soft, hot skin and nerves.

He pushes her over the edge and hopes that it stains the bed and the clothing because he's so God damn angry at his brother for not telling him. So angry at himself, and her arching under him, her nails biting into his back, the room filled with panting and the long primal noise of her orgasm makes some of that anger disappear because maybe he couldn't do anything for his brother, but at least he can finish what was probably the only good thing he'd ever done.

He comes inside her and tries to remember if she said she was on the pill or not. She must be because she just kind of rolls into him at the feel of it rather than a wide eyed anger.

He collapses on her. She makes a soft puff of noise at his weight, but doesn't make a move to shuffle him out and off.

"Dick..." His name a whisper in the otherwise silent house. He's surprised she says it, shouldn't it break whatever spell she had cast on herself for her to be losing her virginity to anyone that wasn't him.

"Uh huh?"

"I was...it was...are you..." She can't seem to decide exactly what she wants to ask.

Was she good? Yes. She moved like everything he did was magic.

Was it good? _Fuck_ yes.

Are you alright? No. God no.

She decides against saying anything. Her fingers are in his hair and he swears to God she's trying to comfort him.

"Can we do it again?" She asks nervously. He pushes himself up off her chest and looks down at her, sliding out of her, fully coming out of her and dripping onto the bedding. Most of the clothing had fallen to the floor.

Her skin is flushed and she's finding her hands awfully interesting.

"You want to have sex with me again?"

He watches her swallow and open her mouth. No sound comes out. She nods.

"Why?"

She looks at him with wide, bright eyes.

"I enjoyed it." She tells him like this should be enough reason and if she was anyone else it would be.

"You did..."

"I'm sorry, was I supposed to scream like a porn star to prove that?" She asks, her eyebrow raised and her mouth twisting around the words.

He's a little bit amazed at her. She's still spread out underneath him, not a scrap of clothing on, and she doesn't seem to be all that ashamed or nervous.

She's not like any other virgin he's had who always wants to cuddle and immediately put their clothes back on.

He just looks at her for a long moment. He can't believe her.

Her eyes go wide, "It was awful. That's why you don't want to fuck again, isn't it?

He likes that she swears, that she calls it what it is because they, sure as fuck, aren't making love

"It was good." Really good, but his job is done. He's proven to her that she's not broken. Now she can go off and find a nice, new boyfriend. A nice guy who'll buy her flowers and take her out and be good to her. "Find yourself a nice boy, Ghostworld." He tells her moving to the end of the bed to retrieve his boxers.

"I don't want a _nice__boy,_ Dick. Why would I play that game again? The waiting and wishing and hoping and wondering if this is normal, if he's just waiting because he really wants to respect me, or if there's something wrong with me. Or him." She pulls on a button up from the floor, Cassidy's, "I'm not asking you to be my boyfriend, Dick. I'm just asking for you to fuck me. Good and hard and rough..."

She doesn't say the _like__I__deserve,_but he hears it anyway.

She's up on her knees and the button up hangs off her small form, but she hasn't done up any buttons yet so there's a wide stripe of skin down the center of her that looks soft and hot and far too appealing.

"Fuck." He hisses and pushes her back down onto the bed. She moves to pull the shirt off, "Keep it on." He hisses and her hands drop from the fabric, "I'm not staying here long, Mac." He tells her, his mouth breaking from her skin, "I'll be in the Caymans with Big Dick." She presses her hand against his mouth.

"The only _Big __Dick_ I want to hear about right now is yours." She tells him and her voice is dark and breathy, causing his anatomy to harden.

He pulls up away from her burning skin, she knows this is temporarily. He doesn't have to explain anything to her because she knows that this is a mess that needs to end. That this is wrong and bad, but they need it right now...he needs it.

He pushes into her. She's not as tight but hot, soaked, stained by him and he bites his lip to keep from just fucking losing it because the idea of _owning_ her speeds up his rapid heartbeat. Her body is fucking amazing. She wouldn't even have to do a thing and she'd still be in the top five best lays he's ever had.

She pushes up against him, her fingers pressing hard into his skin.

She moans out his name and arches up into him, "Harder." She practically begs and he slams into her, moving the bed.

She's a quick study because her movements are more confident this time, pulling low, primal sounds out of him.

She must have been half way there before he even touched her because she tumbles over that edge quickly; then again maybe she has just found out she likes the rough stuff.

It's loud, and in his ear, and surrounded by shaky, panting breathing. Her fingers digging into his skin, sharp, burning points of contact as she tries to pull him in deeper, forever.

He grabs her face and forces her to look at him. He's never seen anyone drown, but he figures that look must be awfully close and when his name slips past her lips, hot and desperate, it pulls him closer to the edge.

She's seeing though a euphoric haze, but she asks him what he wants her to do, what he wants to do to her, what she can do for him.

He grabs her hands off him and pins her, squirming, to the bed before he grabs a leg and bends her until he hits something that makes her desperate to touch him. A panting mess beneath him, he slams into her rough and she squirms and begs him to let her touch him before her words garble and her orgasm throws him over the edge and he fills her up.

He pulls out watching her, full up, leaking, panting, red faced, her hands on him quickly, running across his skin before they settle tired at her side.

He lays down next to her this time, listening to her try to school her breathing.

"Again?" She asks like she expects to never get laid again.

"Are you serious?" He asks, but when he looks at her he knows she absolutely serious. She moves so that she's straddling him and she is making a beautiful mess of Cassidy's bed. He's pretty sure it's on purpose which makes him like her a little more.

_Fuck_ they need therapy.

She slides back so that his legs are captured by her and she's staring at his dick like she expects it to tell her the secrets of the universe.

Her gaze is on fire and, okay, is making him a little hot. She's close to him, her breath is on him and he knows what she wants to do.

She looks up at him quickly, "You'll tell me if I do it wrong, right?"

He's not sure she could do anything wrong, especially with his dick in her mouth, but he nods and she runs her tongue up him, cleaning him of her taste and his last load. She swallows and he makes note of it.

It's clumsy and half way through he stops her in order to bury himself in her.

He tells her to say his name.

She tells him to say hers.

He wants to be sure she's thinking about him, he doesn't want to know why she wants to hear him say her name.

He calls her Cindy and she freezes under him for a second before, with a breathy moan of his name, she comes again.

When they untangle themselves this time, he is spent.

There's nothing left in him to give and thankfully she's not in the receiving kind of mood anymore.

"I'm hungry. Is that weird?" She asks quietly and it's kind of nice that she asks him that kind of thing. Is it weird she likes it rough? No. Should it make that noise? It's fine. Is it good if I do this? Yes, _God,_ yes.

"I get hungry after, too." He rolls off the bed and walks naked into his own room to get dressed.

She follows, pulling on jeans and her bra along the way.

Her purse is in his room and they both stare at it for a moment.

"You want some cereal?"

She shrugs but follows him down into the kitchen.

They eat cereal and watch Super Troopers and he thinks that maybe, in a few years, when the sex is about _them_ and not about how fucking _broken _they are, that they should date or get married, or something.

He's sure he's ruined her for other men anyway. She gives him her number in case of emergencies. He doesn't know what kind of emergency she means but he doesn't call.

He doesn't really give her too much thought for the next ten years.

Not until Veronica's back, and Logan's cleared (again).

Not until she shows up at his place, in the middle of the night, with a box of Fruit Loops and a copy of Super Troopers.

This time they eat and watch the movie first and he calls her the next day.


	8. Moonlighting

**Moonlighting**

* * *

><p>There are some great things about Veronica being back.<p>

Getting calls in the middle of the night for tech support is not one of those things.

She is still in her pajamas, a travel mug full of coffee and her headphones blaring the loudest thing on her phone.

Iron Maiden.

She is trying to block out everything but the computer because Dick is in the office for some reason and she can feel his eyes on her.

She looks up and his mouth is moving.

He's talking to her? All she can hear is Getty Lee.

She nods absently and continues with her work.

Why is Dick even there? Logan's still deployed, shouldn't he be off at the 09er trying to get laid?

He seems pleased with her response and continues to talk but he doesn't move. This is possibly the easiest he's ever been to deal with so when he pauses she nods again.

She patches the problem.

Dick is leaning forward in his seat, his eyes burning into her and she can't help but wonder what kind of story he's telling her because it must be some sort of juicy gossipy story. 09ers were all gossip hounds.

She turns off iron maiden and she can hear Dick's voice, dark and low.

"...pumping, back arched, nails deep, just fucking begging for it. I have handcuffs at home just waiting for you, you like it rough don't you, Mackenzie,"

She taps nonsense out on the keyboard and nods like before.

"That's what I thought, you just fucking scream it. You want it right now, don't you? You want me to just pull you out of that chair and bend you over that desk, don't you? Just rip those cute little shorts down and pound into you right here. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

She nods and takes a sip of her coffee. She wonders how long he'll go on like that and she hates that she's having a reaction to it, but she hasn't had a good lay in fucking forever. She'll gladly put his words into the bank for later.

"Face down on the hard desk, fingers gripping the edge, the paperwork falling to the ground, the desk shaking with every thrust."

She is turned on.

She hates that she is, but his voice is this deep, dark thing that she's falling into and she suddenly understands his success rate because, yeah, she kind of does want him to do those things to her.

"You a screamer, Mac? Do I have to press my hand against your mouth so Veronica doesn't come out of the office to see what's wrong?"

She puts the coffee mug down and looks at him.

"No. You don't." She tells him and he almost falls out of his seat.

"How...how long have you..." He looks flustered. He hadn't meant for her to actually hear any of that. That had been all for him with her occasional nods just fuelling the story he was weaving for himself.

"Pumping, back arched, nails deep..." She tells him slowly and pulls the headphones from her ears, "But trust me Dick...you'd be the one begging for it." She pushes herself up and away from the desk and walks across the room to the office where Veronica is asleep on her desk.

_Again_.

"Veronica."

Veronica jumps a little and drops down onto the floor like she expects to get shot at. Which isn't nearly as uncommon as she'd like.

"It's fixed, I'm going home now and you should too."

"You're right...thanks Mac."

"It's no problem." She turns away from the door and Dick is leaning against the main door.

She grabs her purse, she doesn't mean to bend over the desk... or maybe she does... but a soft, low _fuck_ is pulled from Dick.

She crosses the office and stands in front of him, in her t-shirt and small 'home economics created' pajama shorts, and tries her best not to feel self-conscious, but he just looks like he wants to eat her alive.

"I'd like to go home now please." She taps him on the shoulder hoping that he gets the point.

He slides away from the door, but he follows her out.

"You sure you know which home, Mackenzie?" He offers, but she slides into her car.

"I'm sure."

He leans down, arms crossed over her car door, "You don't look sure."

She must be flushed, she's all thumping heartbeat and flushed skin and embarrassingly damp. She has to go home and deal with things before she lets Dick use his charm to carve another notch in his bedpost.

"Good night, Dick." She pulls away leaving him standing in the street, watching her go.

* * *

><p>Normally he wouldn't stop.<p>

Chicks on the side of the road, their heads under the hood, were not usually worth the effort.

It's not that they weren't hot or anything. It was that it impressed upon them that he was a white knight, and he was far from it.

He slows down to look anyway though. If it was raining or something, and they were stupid hot he would maybe chance the unwanted attachment for a good thank you lay.

The girl looks up at him and he pulls over.

_Mac_.

Cindy Mackenzie with her barely there shorts and too big T-shirt that fell to one side exposing shoulder and promising nothing but hot flesh underneath.

"What happened?" He asks walking over and looking at where she's looking. She spouts off some stuff he doesn't understand about the car.

He wishes that the weather would turn because there is no reason for her to come home with him and wait it out.

He's sure that he could get her to agree to have sex with him if they were just alone at his home, with the call of soft bedding and hot company. He had seen the way she looked at him before. She had wanted him, he had seen it in her dark eyes, the sound of her breathing and the flush of her skin.

"Look, it's late and I can't get a hold of anyone." She sighs like this is so hard for her. He knows something that's hard for her, "You have guest rooms and shit, right?"

"Yeah."

She won't be sleeping in one of those if he gets his way.

She doesn't wait for him to offer one up to her, she just grabs her purse from her car and gets into his.

Starting the car back up, its impossible not to look at her. Those little fabric shorts have ridden up in her lap to the point where she might as well be in just her underwear. Underwear he's not even sure she's wearing, he had seen no evidence of it when she had bent over that desk.

She is laid out in the passenger seat, stretched out, eyes closed, apparently beat.

He wants to touch her, but he has to do this right or he'll get a slap in the face and a taste of Veronica's taser.

She twists in the seat and he watches with held breath as one of her legs moves and pulls up to her chest.

The drive back to his house is insanely difficult. She keeps moving, yawing, and stretching and wetting her lips. _Jesus Christ_.

He's never been so thankful to park a car. Well, that's not true, but he's pretty damn thankful that his fractured attention won't send them into the drink or into a tree.

He watches her get out of the car desperate to know if there's another layer under those shorts.

He follows her into the house wondering if she's still hot for him.

"Mac." He stops her in the kitchen, she looks back at him and he takes his chance. He leans down and kisses her, pulling her into his arms, kissing her deep and hard.

She kisses him back, her hands on him, pulling him closer, pulling his hair then his belt buckle.

He sets her down on the island so that his hands can roam across her skin and not lose that closeness.

No bra, as advertised by the oversized shirt, just hot, soft skin. He breaks from her mouth to hear her gasp and moan when his hand grabs her roughly.

She arches into him, forcing his hands harder against her. Her shoes hook around his legs and pull him closer, closer, closer.

"You're too far away." She whines, her hands making quick work of his belt and zipper.

"I can get closer..." He whispers darkly in her ear, loving the small shiver it causes.

She nods and he grips the waist of her shorts. It's not the most graceful removal he's ever done, but she doesn't care, and neither does he, because she is pulling him out of his pants and he was right.

No panties.

He moans at the sight and the feel because she seems to be done with foreplay. She pulls him until he's against her, wet.

She stops him before he can push into the wet, welcoming heat.

"You're clean?"

"Yes." He tells her exasperated, he just wants to be inside her, _please_. He's about to beg her when he stops himself, no way is he going to let her be right.

He pushes into her and she moves against him. He's not sure if he's glad, or not that she isn't wearing heels because she's digging her heels into him. He imagines the pinpoints of pain spurring him on and really can't decide.

"Harder." She growls into him and he obliges, slamming hard into her. She wants it rough then that is more than fine with him, he unwraps their arms and lets her fall back onto the counter. He rips her shirt off her and, slamming into her, watches as she falls apart. She comes hard and wet around him, back arched, nails scraping ineffectually against the granite.

It's a gorgeous sight and a few quick, hard thrusts into her quaking body he's done for.

He lays down over her, trying to catch his breath. She's smiling and playing with his hair.

"I wasn't sure you were going to try anything since you didn't even try and touch me on the way over here." She tells him, her voice is low and a little hoarse.

"Wait." He pushes himself up to look at her, naked save for her T-shirt handing from one wrist, "You wanted me to..." He narrows his eyes at her, "Is your car even broken?"

She looks sheepishly at her hands, "When I saw it was you...I thought it might be..." She closes her eyes tight, "It just needs a jump."

"Oh, I'll give you a jump all right." He pulls her into his arms and starts towards his bedroom. He thinks she's probably right about it being fate. She hadn't said the word out loud, but he had felt it in the heavy silence.

If she wants he's willing to put away his carving tools because she is the last, and best, notch in his bedpost.


	9. Thunder

**Thunder**

The dog hated everyone.

Mac was fairly certain that it didn't eat her in her sleep entirely because she was where the dog treats came from.

His name was Thunder and he was like an eighth hand dog. Apparently he kept coming back to the shelter for various reasons.

The dog was just this side of vicious, but in her neighborhood that was a good thing rather than bad. In fact, her father had actually asked the shelter for a guard dog and this is what she had gotten as a welcome back to Neptune gift.

A fuzzy, cream-colored anger machine.

So when the leash snapped and the dog sent all its 200+ pounds right at the tall blonde on the beach she was positive that a 911 call was in her near future.

"Thunder!" She yelled out, taking off after the dog, "Nein!" The dog paused briefly in its escape only to look back at her like she was crazy.

_So much for the obedience training._

The blonde turned just in time for Thunder to smash into his chest and send him backwards into the sand.

She drops to the sand and wraps her arms around the dog's neck, and tries to pull him off. The man's hands, however, are running through the dog's shaggy mane.

She realizes that his howls of pain are in fact laughter and upon inspection she discovers two things.

One, Thunder is licking the man's face happily, and two, she knew this man.

Dick Casablancas?

Laughing, he pushes himself up in the sand and the dog happily rests across his lap.

Jealous.

A pang of jealousy runs right through her because, _god damnit_, that's her dog and he's done that to her twice in the three months that she's had him.

"Girls your size shouldn't have dog's this size. You can snap your arm off going for a walk." Dick tells her in place of hello.

"I have a large dog _because_ I'm so small."

He looks confused.

"I live by myself in the hood, Dick. It was either this giant dog or living with my parents." She sits down in the sand next to him, looking out at the ocean, her hand in Thunder's fur.

"Kane doesn't pay you enough for a nice, middle-class apartment in a shank-free neighborhood?"

She turns back to him surprised, "I don't work for Kane anymore. I quit..."

"Why? I heard they practically begged you to work for them. You must have been making money hand over fist."

"It was boring." She tells him simply, hoping to end this conversation. It's bad enough that her dog is in love with Dick, she doesn't want to talk about her financials so he can mock her for being poor.

"Veronica." He comes to the right conclusion anyway.

He moves his hand from the dog to run a hand through his own thick, golden mane. The sun makes it shimmer and she hates thinking of Dick Casablancas as shimmering.

She looks down at herself and knows that he isn't thinking that she's shimmering. She's in some ratty, old jean shorts and her ancient Hearst ringer.

She wasn't exactly dressed to impress, but when she looks back at him he's got his eyes on her legs, climbing up towards where sand is making its way into her underwear as if it was its natural state.

She wonders if she should cut him off at the pass, make up some boyfriend so he won't hit on her because he certainly looks like he's going to.

"What's his name?"

"What?" She hadn't even had a chance to not so casually drop the fake boyfriend yet.

Dick roughs up the dog's fur, and if Thunder could purr he would absolutely be doing so now.

What's so great about Dick?

She wonders briefly if he smells good before giving him the dog's name.

"Thunder?"

"Yeah, he came with the name."

"Why didn't you just get a roommate?"

"I'd rather not. I haven't had a roommate since college. I don't want _everything_ to go back to the way it was before."

"If it's any consolation, I'm sure you'd get laid more this time around."

"It is not."

She hasn't had... _Relations_ with anyone other than herself since she moved back here. She had hoped to get laid at the reunion, a 'wham, bam, please never talk to me again' kind of tryst, but the thing had been cut short due to drama.

This was Neptune and, around here, the side of drama came free with every event.

She has had enough of this. She picks up the leash and stands up, brushing sand from her shorts and makes to move.

Thunder is having none of it.

Until Dick stands up, takes the leash from her and starts walking.

"Where are you going?"

"Home. It's an all-nighter at the office tonight, I was hoping to get a nap in." She tells him freely.

"Okay."

He doesn't hand her the leash or turn away. He just continues on beside her as she makes her way back to her apartment.

He's walking her home.

_Why on earth is he walking her home?_

"Why are you still here?" Is what comes out of her mouth as they turn the corner, she can see her apartment building from here.

"You said you lived in a dangerous neighborhood."

That's it.

That's all he says.

It's not like she lives close to anything. It's not like she was on his way, or not that far out of his way anyway.

She's seen his place. It's way on the other side of town.

You know, the nice part that she used to live in before she decided 'to hell with fiscal solvency, she wanted excitement and adventure'.

What she got was late nights at the office, a shitty apartment and a dog that didn't eat her in her sleep only because it wasn't convenient and now Dick Casablancas was walking her home like the end of a date or something, or like he cares if she was mugged. Dangerous neighborhood... Like he gave a flying fuck.

Fuck.

Did he think that this merit badge bullshit was going to get him laid? She may have been in the midst of a drought, but she wasn't just going to fall into bed with him because her dog liked him.

What was this, some sort of chick flick?

She takes the leash from Dick at the entrance of her building. He's looking up at it like he's trying to decide just how much of a dive it was.

"Uh, thanks I guess." She tries to move through the door, but Thunder is sitting patiently at Dick's side. His fingers scratching the dog's ears.

"I can come up if you need me to."

She searches his tone and the look on his face for a double meaning, but he's too focused on petting her monster of a dog to be leering at her.

"Yeah, sure." She leads them into the building and into her small apartment. The dining room is packed with boxes and monitors and wires.

She doesn't want to unpack. If she unpacks it means that this is her life now. She's all for the satisfaction of working with Veronica, stopping bad guys, and doing something interesting with her skill set. She's not so much for the being poor thing.

Veronica had options. She could just take the bar and be a lawyer and let the money roll in. She'd burned everything behind her. _She_ would be blacklisted by now after how she'd left Kane.

She was a legend, but she was a legend in the way that one guy who shits on the bosses desk is a legend.

No one wants to hire that guy.

She turns her back on Dick for a second and he's on the floor play fighting with her dog.

The smile on his face is striking and, in fact, strikes her hard in the chest.

"I should give him to you."

Dick looks at her excited, but the excitement fades as he takes her in, "What'll you do then? He's your security system, right?"

"I should just move in with my parents." She grabs two beers from her fridge, handing him one before cracking her own and letting it slide down her throat.

Maybe she should just live with her parents. Veronica had done it. It was no big deal.

Okay, that was a lie. It was totally a big deal.

"I could just visit..."

She looks up at him. He's leaning against the couch, Thunder flopped protectively over his lap.

He's watching her this time, focused on her, and his gaze burns in a wonderful but not really welcome way.

"You could." She sits down next to him and runs her hand through Thunder's fur all too aware of Dick's body.

"I thought you were going to take a nap..."

"Yeah..." She drains her beer and sets it on the coffee table, "Or we could watch a movie..." She offers.

She doesn't know where this is coming from, but the fact is that Thunder is calm and happy, and Dick's company is actually kind of nice.

She gets up onto the couch and Dick follows with some effort.

They watch Shawn of the Dead, even though they both must have seen it a million times each.

She catches him reciting lines and she bites her lip. That's actually really cute.

She fades in and out until her eyes refuse to open.

There's something warm against her, it feels wonderful and it smells fantastic.

It's with some far off part of her brain that she realizes that smell, warm pine and sea salt, is Dick.

She wakes up on her bed, Dick passed out beside her, Thunder guarding the end of the bed.

She pushes herself up, slowly untangles herself from Dick, and looks at the scene. What the hell is she doing? What the hell is _he_ doing? Why had she even woken up because he had been so comfortable.

Her alarm is going off.

She has to go to work.

"Dick. Dick wake up." She shakes him awake and he looks so mellow and at peace, just content. She really wants to know his secret.

"Hey..." He's smiling at her and it's just surreal. He's only here because he likes her dog. Why was he sleeping in her bed, napping with her?

"I have to go to work."

"Oh, okay." He stretches and it pulls his shirt up exposing a span of skin, tight abs, cut. _Christ, he is good looking._

She swallows hard and forces herself away from the bed. She doesn't have time for that even if she decided it wasn't as bad an idea as it seemed.  
>-<p>

Its late, pitch black out, and she doesn't have her car.

Calm down Mac, this isn't as bad a neighborhood as your parents tell you it is.

It was about confidence.

She starts down the street hating herself for not taking Veronica up on her offer to drive her home.

She's trying to think of the most well lit way back to her apartment when a sports car pulls up beside her and rolls down the passenger window.

_Oh God._

She looks down at herself, what about her seems to say 'for rent'?

Maybe it was her form fitting dress, stockings and heels. It did look kind of like she'd be extra.

The door opens and she cringes.

She leans down to close the door, "Look, I'm not a-"

It's Dick.

"Going my way?" He smirks and it pulls something in her stomach, sending blood away from her brain in a hurry.

She slides into the car and thanks him quietly.

He doesn't even pretend to not check her out. She can feel his eyes drag up and down her, and when he goes to shift gears she can see his hand move towards her then stop.

"So what brings you over my way?"

"I followed you from the casino."

"What?" She had been look out tonight for Veronica, thus the _fuck__me_ dress.

"Yeah... I hadn't meant to. It just kinda happened... You look really good by the way."

She pulls at the hem of her dress as if she could suddenly turn the thing into a burka. Dick puts his hand over hers, in her lap, and it's a million degrees and radiating out into her skin, quickening everything in her.

"Sorry. I just... I thought maybe we could watch Hot Fuzz tonight... Maybe you'll actually make it all the way through this one?" He removes his hand and focuses on the road, "Or I could drop you off and go mind my own business, see you whenever Thunder decides to 'attack' me."

She looks over at him and thinks back to how comfortable and surprisingly welcome his company had been.

"I haven't seen Hot Fuzz in a while...I guess we could watch it tonight."

His smile is bright and he speeds up. They are at her apartment in no time.

Thunder is excited to see Dick again.

"I'm just going to change..." She points to the bedroom, but Dick reaches out quickly and holds her still.

"Don't."

Something smolders between them, hot for a second, and she decides not to change.

They watch Hot Fuzz on the couch, in formal wear, drinking cheap beer and getting dog hair all over themselves.

Thunder has sprawled across them both and she is finding it hard to keep her eyes open again.

She falls asleep on him and dreams of hot, deliciously smelling forests and being pulled happily under the water.

She wakes up in her own bed again. Dick sprawled out beside her, this time he's in his underwear. She's still in her dress, heels and stockings discarded.

_Fuck_ he's good looking and her body is too aware of it.

He's 'out cold' and she runs her hand up his chest.

He snatches up her hand, apparently not as out cold as she thought.

"I get to touch you now." He tells her huskily, eyes half closed and dark, He's holding her hand over his heart and she can feel his thumping heartbeat.

"What?"

"It's only fair. You touched me, I should get to touch you."

He seemed to be unmoving about this, and what harm can him running his hand up her torso really do? She was still dressed and everything.

She sighs like it's such a trail, "Fine."

The smile that spreads across his face is predatory and amazing. It pools heat in her gut and shortens her breath.

He sits up and wraps his arms around her. He pulls the zipper down, opening her dress, slipping it from her shoulders.

"No bra..." He bites his lip, hesitating, before he pulls the fabric down, exposing her. She takes deep breaths trying to calm herself down, but all it manages to do is heave her chest like some Harlequin heroine.

His mouth hovers above her skin like he wants to kiss her, to taste her skin, and she shivers at the unsaid implications.

He puts his head in the crook of her neck, his breath hot and quick against her skin, as he runs his hand slowly up her chest. He moans softly as his hand slides across her breast and she echoes it quietly.

She raises her hand to touch him again, to continue this little game, but just as her hand makes contact Thunder makes himself known, dropping his empty food dish onto the bed and whining.

"I'll get it." Dick sighs and grabs the dish, swinging himself off the bed.

Her eyes can't pull away from him because he's hard and tenting his underwear, and he's going to feed her dog. It's probably the funniest and best thing she's ever seen.

She pulls her dress all the way off. It's not that she expects something to happen when Dick gets back -_she totally does_- it's that the fabric is tight and uncomfortable around her hips.

"Under the sink?" His voice yells out from the kitchen.

"Yeah, two of the cups." She replies. This feels so weird, so... domestic.

She listens to him talk quietly to Thunder, the sound of the food hitting his dish and the click of the coffee machine.

It's like he feels at home here and she doesn't even mind. The entire apartment feels so much better with him in it.

She's pretty sure she likes him.

They've talked about nothing other than British comedies, beer and her dog, but she's pretty sure she does actually like him.

"Dick?"

"Yeah?" He calls back from somewhere, sounds echoic, bathroom.

"Did you want to have dinner tonight?"

"What?" He falters and appears quickly in the doorway. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He's just staring at her, taking her in.

"Dinner? It's this thing where regular people eat a meal after lunch and before cocktails?"

He steps into the bedroom and closes the door behind him, keeping Thunder out.

"Are you asking me on a date?" He manages, sinking to the bed and pulling her towards him so she's looking up at blonde hair, darkened blue eyes and excellent bone structure.

"That depends on your answer. If it's yes, than I am. If it's no, than I wasn't and I just mean some Chinese food while we watch World's End..."

His hand traces slowly down her body until he pulls her legs easily open and rests between them.

"Can it be a date, but still have Chinese food and a movie?" He asks, his mouth lowering to hers.

He kisses her instead of waiting for her response. She supposes that the fact that she kisses him back is answer enough or maybe the fact that she was waiting for him in just a pair of panties, a pair he is quickly sliding his hand into.

His fingers slide into her slick hole and Dick breaks from her mouth in order to hear her moan softly as he pumps and feels her from the inside.

He's driving her quickly towards oblivion and it's the best thing, holding onto his hot skin and the room filled with the smell of cedar, ocean salt and sex.

She's so close when he pulls his fingers out. She whines and grabs his hand to pull him back, hips rocking up against him, but he's smiling down at her bright and striking, predatory.

She loves that smile.

He tosses her underwear, wet and ruined, across the small room, his own following quickly after it and he pushes into her.

Full.

He latches onto her, arms wrapped around each other, and he goes slow kissing her. It fills her up with a feeling she's sure must be love. She's felt that feeling before, but never like this. Never has she felt so filled with it, the feeling doesn't burn hot and hard, it's a slow, warm burn.

It's when their eyes lock that she realizes that this isn't sex.

It's that ever elusive love making. She had thought she had done it before, but she was wrong because nothing has ever felt as good and _right_ as this.

She falls over the edge and it's a quiet thing, heavy panting, fingers hard against his skin and his name, soft, and possibly lovingly, spoken.

He follows shortly after her, hot and wet; his hips pressing hard into hers like he is sure that if he tries harder he can get further into her.

He collapses on the bed next to her, huffing for breath. He slips his hand into hers, she feels wet and hot and tired and wonderful.

"So...seven o'clock?" He asks quietly like he's afraid he's going to break the wonderful calm.

"Yeah, seven o'clock is good." She rolls over to press a kiss against his skin. She lays there, half on him, until Thunder's scratching at the bedroom door becomes impossible to ignore.

"He needs a yard." Dick tells her, pulling his clothes back on.

"Yeah..." They look at each other and then both quickly look away.

It takes three months before he asks if she wants to move in with him, you know, because Thunder is too big of a dog for her tiny apartment. She agrees because yeah, she probably loves him too.


	10. As Is' department

**As Is Department **

* * *

><p>He knows Mac's not the type.<p>

He knows it, but most of her friends are guys and they all seem to share some strange past that no one wants to talk about.

It's something big and huge that binds them forever, like they made a pact after accidentally killing a fisherman or something.

It's full on _I know what you did_, but he's sure that Mac isn't cheating on him... well mostly sure.

He knows it can't be Logan because he's Veronica's and Mac would never do that to Veronica, their bond is too deep for that kind of catty bullshit. On top of that, there was her budding friendship with Parker who also dated him, so he's positive that it's not Logan.

Not that she's cheating but if she was it wouldn't be Logan.

For sure.

Wallace... Wallace is more Veronica's friend than Mac's, they share a loose brother-sister thing. A fluid thing that is occasionally protective, but never burning. He's sure that you need that burn to cheat.

Which leaves Piz and Dick.

Piz is out for the same reason as Logan and they don't share those strange, heavy glances anyway. Whatever happened in the past, Piz is not in on the secret.

Which leaves...

Dick.

Blonde, surfer frat boy, rich asshole. He wants to say it's not him on those merits alone, but if it's any of them it'd be him. There's a heat in the looks they give each other, topped with annoyance, sure. but there's something weird that sizzles between them.

He gets his answer when a name comes out of her mouth while inflagrante that isn't his.

_It isn't Dick's either._

"What?" He pulls back away from her. She's got tears in her eyes and her hands on her mouth, pressing down as if it can take the offending word out of the air.

She pushes away from him and, crying, she pulls her clothes on quickly before leaving.

"Who the fuck is _Cassidy_!?"

* * *

><p>He goes to Veronica's, but she's at Logan's so he heads to the hotel instead.<p>

He calls Mac eight times on his way to the hotel in attempts to find out what the hell is going on.

She doesn't answer and honestly he's not all that surprised, but he can't maintain being the good guy without at least trying. He may be pretty amoral when it came to academics, but he liked to think he was pretty forthright when it came to relationships. After all, Mac was basically his second serious relationship ever and he wanted to do it right; which was becoming increasingly difficult when it felt like there was this giant, dark secret in the room that everyone knew but him.

It was like being set up with a hooker all over again.

Logan opened the door for him and, looking oddly concerned, let him into the suite.

"What can I do for you, Max?" Veronica asks standing from the couch, she's glancing at Logan and it feels like something's wrong.

Maybe he can shock the truth out of her because he knows there's no other way of getting something out of Veronica Mars that she doesn't want to let go of.

"Who's Cassidy?"

Veronica falls back to the couch, Logan grabs a hold of the wall and Dick appears in the bedroom door.

"What?" Veronica asks, her voice a whisper.

"What the fuck do you want to know about Cass for?" Dick's voice is hard and his hand grips onto the door handle tightly. He's holding the door close to his chest, keeping whatever half naked slut he's currently entertaining from the rest of the party.

"It's about Mac...I think she might be seeing Cassidy."

Dick scoffs, "Not unless she's got a fucking time machine." He rolls his eyes violently and goes back into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Max looks between Logan and Veronica who look uncomfortable at best.

"What?" he asks hoping for maybe, even the smallest amount of clarity.

Logan sighs, "Mac would have to practice necromancy to see Cassidy...he's dead."

"Oh..."

"He was Dick's younger brother." Veronica supplies, "It's a bit of a sore subject for the both of them."

"So what should I do? She won't talk to me. She's never said anything about before she came to Hearst...I don't know anything about her..." he realized, aside from her little purity test scam he knew nothing about her past. He thinks she has a sister, or maybe a brother; she's pretty tight lipped about everything.

Logan's hand goes heavily to his shoulder, "You can't force this kind of thing, Max. It'll come in time."

* * *

><p>Dick sits on the edge of his bed, "Do you want to talk about it or something?" He asks turning to look at Mac, she's wrapped herself up in all of his blankets and her eyes are red.<p>

She shakes her head.

"Dump that loser, Mac." He tells her firmly, "If you can't talk to him about shit then he's not for you. Dump him right now."

"He's out there?" she asks quietly and he just nods.

She shifts off the bed and he watches her go to the door and, her hand on the edge, opens it a crack. She knows that he's right.

She's tried to talk to him about her past, but it just never comes out.

"Mac, just do it, or I'll do it for you."

She wants to let him do it for her, so badly, but she likes Max.

He deserves better than to think she had thought so little of him that she fucked Dick on the side.

She hasn't been fucking Dick, but she still felt, a little bit, like a cheater. She would come running whenever things felt too overwhelming. She would just hide in his room and wait until she could breathe right again and slip away.

Ever since his half-assed apology he had felt kind of like a safe place.

She looked back at Dick, lounging on his bed watching her struggle with herself.

"I'll do it." She tells him quietly.

"I'll be here." He points at his bed, he doesn't smirk at her or look smug. _Thank God_, because she's not sure she can do this, but she knows that she has to.

Dick had been with a girl when she had gotten here. She let herself in, Logan and Veronica had come back from a movie, or something after she had traded places with the blonde.

He had told the girl, that he'd had his fingers in, to go home and do that French Lit paper she had been bitching about.

The girl had looked at her with fire, but left.

She had crawled into Dick's bed, her sneakers kicked away, and taken claim to all his blankets. Dick lying beside her letting her come to him.

She had been laying there, wrapped loosely in his arms, when Max had shown up.

She had to do this.

Taking a breath, she drops the blankets she's hiding in, hiding in that familiar smell, and leaves the bedroom.

Everyone sees her leave the bedroom.

"What the fuck?" Is about all Max can seem to manage. Logan and Veronica are looking at her wide-eyed and Max seems to take some comfort in the fact that he's not the only one in the dark.

She grabs his hand and pulls him out to the balcony.

"I'm sorry."

"Are you cheating on me?"

"No."

The 'not yet' seems to hang uncomfortably in the air between them.

"What's going on, Mac?"

She's staring at her hands, "I like you a lot, Max. You're a great guy and we have fun, but-"

"But you're in love with Dick?" She can't blame him for how acidic his tone is.

She shakes her head quickly.

"No. I'm not," she takes a breath and forces herself to look at him, "but I'm not in love with you either."

He looks like she's hit him and she hopes to God that he hadn't loved her. They hadn't said it yet so it wasn't like she had been lying to him.

"I see..."

"I had a really tough senior year," he looks like he's going to say that high school is hard for everyone so she cuts him off at the pass, "my boyfriend killed a bunch of people and left me naked in a room four floors down while he killed himself. I think I'm allowed to have a tough time."

"That was you... That was Dick's..." A light is coming on inside him and its erasing the way he used to look at her. He used to look at her like she was great, like she was normal and wonderful.

Now he's looking at her like she's broken.

"Why didn't you tell me..."

That look and that soft tone of voice is why she hadn't, and she knows that now. She had liked him for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one was because he didn't think she needed mending.

"I had meant to, but it's hard to say and Dick's right for probably the first time in his life. If I couldn't tell you, you're not the one for me... I'm sorry."

He looks hurt and sympathetic and she just wants this to be over, "Okay. I'm going to go. Send someone else for your stuff? Just... Just not Dick, okay."

She must look as confused as she feels because he continues, "I don't want the guy who you've really been dating in my house. Send Veronica." He sighs and leaves her standing on the balcony alone.

She's there a long time before Dick comes out. He throws a sweater at her. She hadn't even realized she was cold, but she wraps herself up in his scent and lets him settle at the railing beside her.

"So that didn't seem to go that badly."

"Guess not."

"Yeah, the lack of yelling made eavesdropping really difficult."

"Did you hear what he said? About us?"

"Yeah."

"You aren't my boyfriend."

"I know that. You're not my girlfriend." He tells her, but his arm is around her waist, pulling her closer.

"I know that." She grabs onto his shirt, burying herself in him, or trying to at least. His arms wrap around her and they stand there waiting for her tears to come.

He's resting his head on hers, holding her tight. He knows that she's broken, that she can't be repaired, but the way he's telling her a story about how Chip and Bandit got lost in TJ, makes her feel like he doesn't care.

He's shopping at the 'as is' department. She's missing all the parts of herself she used to be proud of, but he seems proud of her anyway.

"You're not my boyfriend." She sobs into his shirt.

"Give it time."


	11. Night after Night

**Night after Night**

* * *

><p>She is absolutely blaming Veronica for this. She came home and seeing Logan and Dick again seemed almost natural; to the point that when she had been stood up for a date and Dick had sat down with her she let him. His company, loud and obnoxious as it was, was much better than that demeaning silence.<p>

A bottle and a half of Perseco, or maybe two, on Dick's bill, and it had twisted itself into a pretty good night.

She was lying in her bed, alone, wondering what exactly had happened that he hadn't even _tried_ to take her home, or to follow her to her's. That was probably more his speed; that way the crazy chick he'd just screwed wouldn't know where he lived.

It was a solid plan, not that it really worked for her. She had been to his house before. Veronica had a habit of calling it Logan's place, but she had looked up the paperwork.

It was Dick's place- and she wasn't at it. Instead she was staring at her ceiling blaming Veronica because she would have preferred it.

She rolled out of bed, dragged herself across the apartment and had a shower. Maybe if she was lucky she would _wash __that __man __right __out __of her..._

Ugh.

She was going to blame Veronica for that as well. She never would have watched South Pacific if Veronica hadn't seen a great production.

She tosses back some painkillers, grabs a sports drink from her fridge and heads to work.

* * *

><p>"How was the big date?" Veronica and Keith are both wide-eyed and bushytailed, and she hates them a little bit for lots of reasons but right at the top this morning is how loud and excited they are about her evening.<p>

"You set a date yet? I mean, he doesn't even have to meet your parents, they set you up with him." Veronica is chipper and it must be because Logan-time is in the single digit countdown.

"Cut out all that pesky romance stuff." Keith continues, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

She wonders how long they'd go on before noticing she had climbed out the window.

She turns in her chair, rolling over to the window behind her desk. Maybe if she went one boob at a time she could manage it.

"Come on, Mac, it couldn't have been that bad. He at least paid for the drinks you're still feeling, right?"

She sighs deeply knowing this will never stop otherwise, "He stood me up and I got drunk with Dick."

Veronica's eyes widen considerably.

"And I went home alone."

"And that's my queue to get back to work." Keith nods and disappears into the side office.

Veronica sits down in front of the desk, "What happened?"

"Dick paid for drinks, I got smashed and he sent me home in a cab."

"Wow..."

"I know. He didn't even _try_ to have sex with me. What's wrong with me? Did I get fat?" She looks down at herself but knows that can't be it. She's in the best shape she's ever been in thanks to Wallace whining about not having anyone to play squash with.

"You're smokin'."

"I know, right? What the hell?"

Veronica just shrugs, "Maybe he respects you, or doesn't want to deal with the aftermath of trying to sleep with you. I mean, it would be a big deal."

She forces air past her lips to make a farting noise and logs in to her computer.

"I mean it, Mac. Sleeping with you would be a big deal to him."

She looks up at Veronica, eyes narrowed like she expects she is keeping something from her. It's always so hard to tell if the thing she's keeping from her is about the topic at hand. She's _always_ keeping things from her.

She sighs and grabs a stack of invoices from her inbox, "What, because a million years ago I dated his brother? Whatever. It's not like I wanted him to propose or give me a kidney or something."

Veronica sighs and gets up, "I really don't think that's the reason, Mac." She grabs her camera and disappears into the tiny bathroom turned darkroom.

* * *

><p>Her mother is adamant about giving this mystery boy of theirs another chance. She makes that horrible, sad, sobby noise and talks about never having a grandchild.<p>

When she tells her mother that she doesn't need a husband for that, just science, she looks even sadder so she gives in.

She brings her 'A' game because when this poor sap shows up she wants him to grovel for standing her up. He better be a doctor, or something, and had to save some kid's life. Maybe he had been rescuing kittens from a burning building? A fireman would be nice... Just throw her over his shoulder and take her away from this place...

She found herself wondering how easily Dick could manage that maneuver. She is so lost in the vivid images that her mind creates for the fantasy, his hot breath on her skin and his hand sliding up under her dress, that she doesn't notice that someone has slid into the booth with her until his voice breaks across her fantasy.

"You dreaming about me?"

She blinks away nubile, fantasy Dick to find real life, send her home in a cab and not even try to kiss her Dick.

"What are you doing here?"

"You've been sitting over here, alone, for like twenty minutes..."

"What?" She pulls out her phone... Yeah she had been lost in her fantasy for a good twenty minutes.

No date.

Seriously, dying kids or burning kittens.

She slouches and kicks her legs up onto the booth beside Dick, crossing her ankles. She can see him clearly in the dim corner booth; see his gaze drop to her shoes. If she had had anything to drink yet other than the half glass of wine maybe she would have settled herself someplace more interesting.

"He stood me up again." She tells him as he flags down a waitress.

She doesn't hear what he orders, but, whatever it is, he's asked them to leave the bottle.

"Has he seen you?" He asks leaning forward and catching an eyeful of the dress she's wearing.

"I assume he's seen pictures." She waves the compliment away. At least she thinks it was a compliment. She'd prefer if he leered at her a little bit, if he grabbed her and kissed her hard.

If he let her know how pretty she is with his tongue and she doesn't mean with words.

"Why did you even give this guy a second chance?" He asks, one hand dropping under the table to rest on her legs while the other snatches up her wine glass.

Her breath catches a little as his hand rub against her bare skin, sliding slowly up her leg and then back as he settles her wine glass against his lips.

"My mother really likes this guy." She sighs and it's not nearly as labored and put upon as she'd like, but his hand feels divine.

Can she have more of his skin against her please?

"So?"

"She wants me to settle down, give her a grandchild." She makes a disgusted face and it brings a beautiful, deep laugh out of him.

A bottle of fancy looking sparkling wine shows up with glasses and Dick pours one for her.

When she takes it from him she makes sure that her fingers graze across his, linger, and that her eye contact is strong and as sultry as possible.

He smiles at her.

That's it.

Don't get her wrong, it's a fabulous smile, it's just that she had hoped he would do more with his mouth than that if she leaned in close.

She lets him ply her with alcohol until the wee hours of the morning.

She hangs off him as he leads her outside and she thinks it's about fucking time he tried to make a move on her...

* * *

><p>She wakes up in her own bed, in last night's clothes, completely alone.<p>

God, she blacked out. She couldn't remember what had happened after Dick held her tight and to him.

She's sure now, though, that all he had done was make sure she had gotten home safely.

Which was the right thing to do, of course, but it would have been nice to have the option of hangover cure sex.

All she wants is to have primal, sweaty, up-all-night sex with him. It wasn't like she wanted anything more solid or permanent from him.

She would have to make that more obvious next time.

Not that she even wanted there to be a next time.

* * *

><p>There's a next time.<p>

After being assured by her parents that the mysterious potential son in law had actually had coffee with them and wasn't some elaborate ruse to weaken her defenses she agrees to try again, but she swears to God if he doesn't show this time she will hunt him down, whoever he was, and punch him right in the junk.

She may even bring the retired Mr. Sparky.

She fills up on delicious complimentary bread. She was to meet the man at the new French bistro, she wondered briefly if he was trying to woo her with clout.

It was packed and thirty minutes in she pulls out her phone.

She looks long and hard at the number that had mysteriously made its way into her contacts after her last failed date.

She's not sure she should, but when a waiter tries to take the other chair away she hooks her ankle around it, glares and tells him she's calling him right now to see where he is.

_Mac..._

"Yeah..."

_Why __are __you-_

"Are you hungry?"

_Actually __I __am, __I've __been __waitlisted __at __this __stupid __French __place, __so __I'm __pouting __outside __trying __to __figure __if __I __should __use __Logan's __name __or __my __health inspector __badge __to __get __in._

"La Circ Rouge?"

_Yeah..._

"Use my name."

She hangs up before she can think anymore about it or he can say anything against it.

A minute or so later Dick shows up at the table, suit jacket and everything.

She doesn't stand up to greet him, but she feels like she should.

"You clean up well." She tells him not even sure if she actually has control of her mouth or not. She didn't want to say that. That was something nice, and while it was true they were not the words of someone who wanted to get laid, and laid alone.

Those were _date_ words.

That ridiculously wonderful smile flashes across his face again as he sits down. He leans across the table, and she can't help but follow, transfixed.

'"I'll let you in on a secret; I look good in anything... "

There's a smug kind of smile on his face. She wants to go home with him and she's sure it's palpable in the dark tone and heavy eye contact.

"You look best in nothing I'm sure."

He's a little shaken as he pulls back, but he's rescued from having to respond by the waiter in all his disdainful glory.

He orders for them both; a vegan item for her, the least vegan item on the menu for him and a bottle of wine, sparkling as per usual.

She spends the night coming on to him, devouring beautifully made plates of food and more than her fair share of the wine.

The conversation is easy and comfortable and she doesn't really want him to stop talking. His voice is like a down comforter and she just wants to sink into it and never come out.

Dick pays and they stagger happily out of the restaurant, her arms around him and his on her, sneaking under her dress to graze across skin.

"I'll get you a cab." He tells her, unwrapping her arms from him and taking her hand, pulling her towards a waiting cab.

"No." She puts her heels in and it doesn't stop him, but it's enough tug for him to stop and look at her.

"What do you mean no?"

"I want to go home with you." She tells him hoping to God that all the alcohol hasn't taken the meaning out of her words.

"Mac..." His voice is soft and, _God_, is he being patronizing? Did he even know how to do that?

"No." She takes her hand from his, "No. I am not going home in a God damn taxi again." The wine has made her bold and hopefully not slurry.

"You'd rather I let you walk, or drive? That I just abandoned you instead?"

"Of course not." She makes a grumpy noise in her throat and starts away from him.

"Mac, come back here." He grabs at her and holds her still in his arms.

"Why don't you want to take me home?" She sighs in defeat.

"You want me to?"

"Yes."

"And what then?" He releases her and this feels like a test because he's looking at her so hard it might burn her if she's not careful, and his voice has gotten an edge.

What does he want from her? A confirmation that tomorrow morning nothing will have changed between them other than that they know what the other looks like naked? Is that what he wants because, as the days go by, she's growing less and less sure that she can give him that.

"You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything, I'll take the damn taxi and I'll see you around."

"No," He snatches her arm on her way past, "we are going to do this now."

"So the whole street can watch you reject me, again? No thank you." She tries to wrench her arm out of his grip, but he pulls her to him.

She opens her mouth to yell at him but his mouth is on hers.

_Fucking finally._

His grip on her arm wanes and she slips her arm out of it to wrap around him again. His hands are on her, slipping past fabric to enjoy hot skin.

She's been imagining this for a while now and it's so much better than she had thought because there's something slow and burning under everything that makes her want to just disappear into him.

He pulls away from her, steps back to give her space, his mouth is wet and red and she'd really prefer it be against her again.

Anywhere, she's not picky.

"If you want me too, what is the problem here?" She asks, embarrassed at how breathy her voice sounds.

"Because I want you forever, not just tonight." He blurts out.

Her whole body sags, "You what now?"

He rubs the back of his neck nervously like his brother used to, "I haven't taken you home because I want to take you home permanently and you just want to fool around. There are hundreds of girls I could fool around with, Mac, but I want to _be_ with you_."_

She thinks as hard as her soaked brain with allow for. She thinks hard about Dick and how she feels about him, around him, and how great the nights she spends with him are, how disappointed she is to wake up alone.

"Okay." She nods.

"Okay?"

"Okay, let's _be_ together." She holds out her hand and he snatches it up quickly, pulling her into the taxi.

* * *

><p>They <em>still<em> don't have sex.

Dick demands that she sobers up first. He's been a lot of girls' 'drunken mistake' and he wants to at least be her sober one.

She doubts she'll think this is a mistake when she wakes up next to him though. It feels natural and she slept amazingly.

She sighs unhappily and Dick wraps his arms around her, "What?"

"I have to tell my parents that the guy they want me to see isn't going to happen."

"Oh?"

"Yeah... Whatever, his loss is your gain."

"I'm sure Natalie and Sam will understand."

She sits up in bed and looks down at him, "And how exactly do you know my parents names?"

He rolls away from her, back to her, face hidden in the blankets he's stolen from her side.

"Fuck, you're the guy..." She grabs her pillow and smacks him hard in the side, "How dare you let me think I'd been stood up all those times!"

He barely defends himself; he pulls the pillow from her hands and drops it beside the bed, "You never would have gone on a date with me, Mac. I needed a plan."

A plan everyone had known about but her.

"I'm going to make you pay for that." She pushes him roughly onto his back and straddles him.

A bright smile flashes across his face before he paints an apologetic look on his face.

He's not wearing underwear. Last night, he had asked her at least five times to make sure she knew that it wasn't because he expected something to happen, but because he simply _couldn't_ sleep with clothes on.

She doesn't have any underwear on because she expected something to happen. Slipped off in the night and now the feel of her against him makes him bite back a moan and grip bedding.

"You're not still drunk are you?" He asks, voice low and strained, fingers in the bedding at his sides, staring at her.

She leans down, rubbing herself against his quickly hardening member which creates a beautiful, little hitch in his breathing.

"Stone sober."

"Promise..."

She smiles at the mess he is, how desperately he's trying to hold on to reason and virtue.

"Promise." She kisses him and the way he moves against her is sweet and needy. His hands grab onto her and by the time they stop kissing she's underneath him.

Not exactly the punishment she had intended for letting her think she had been stood up all those times, but, with him pressing himself gently against her, she finds she doesn't care so much at all.

They'll be time to punish him later, she has a feeling they will be together for a good, long while.


End file.
